
Class 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



american ComtnontDealtl^^* 



EDITED BY 



HORACE E. SCUDDER. 



^Imencan €ommonixjealtl)jef 



v^ 



N( , t 



KANSAS 



THE PRELUDE TO THE WAR FOR 
THE UNION 



BY , 



LEVERETT W. SPRING 

PEOPESSOB IN ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITT OF KANSAS 





BOSTON 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
1885 



Copyright, 1885, 
By LEVERETT W. spring. 

All rights reserved. 



The RivfTside Prrsx, Cnmbridgr : 
Electrotyped and Printea by II. 0. lloughton & Co. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Paos 
Pheliminakt ......... i 

CHAPTER 11. 
The Field ... 17 

CHAPTER III. 
Dbiving Down Stakes .24 

CHAPTER IV. 
Lessons in Populab Soyeeeignty . , , .37 

CHAPTER V. 
Countee-Moves 59 

CHAPTER VI. 
Wab on the Wakarusa 79 

CHAPTER VIL 
Some Heavy Blows 102 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Dutch Henby's Crossing, Black Jack, and Osawat- 
omie 137 

CHAPTER IX. 
Per Aspeba 16.3 



iv CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

Page 
The Lecompton Struggle 209 

CHAPTER XL 
Jathawking 237 

CHAPTER XII. 
Close of the Territorial Period .... 257 

CHAPTER Xin. 
During the Wab for the Union .... 268 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Ad Astra 306 

Bibliography 323 

Index 329 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



The limits prescribed for this volume have 
not permitted a minutely detailed account of the 
Kansas struggle. I have endeavored to exhibit 
the logic and spirit of "the first actual national 
conflict between slaveholding and free-labor im- 
migrants," rather than to attempt an exhaustive 
collection of facts. Newspaper files, public doc- 
uments, books, manuscripts that promised to 
throw light upon the subject have been carefully 
examined. A large amount of material has been 
derived from personal intercourse with men of 
all parties who helped to make the history of 
Kansas. If my version of it should not prove 
to be colored with the dyes in vogue twenty, 
five years ago, I beg the reader to bear in mind 
that there is too much truth in what Theodore 
Parker said in 1856, at the anniversary of the 
Anti-Slavery Society, concerning the Kansas busi- 
ness, — "I know of no transaction in human 



vi PREFATORY NOTE. 

history which has been covered up with such 
abundant lying, from the death of Ananias and 
Sapphira down to the first nomination of Gov- 
ernor Gardner." 

The map which accompanies this vohime is 
designed to illustrate the text, rather than to 
exhibit the Kansas of to-day. It shows the chief 
places of historic interest, — some of which no 

longer exist. 

L. W. S. 

State Usiversity, Lawrence, Kansas, 
September, 1885. 



KANSAS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMIKAKY. 

The eminent Union-savers, who devised and car- 
ried through Congress the compromise of 1850, 
fully expected that it would drive the question of 
slavery totally and permanently out of national 
politics. They drained their vocabulary in ap- 
plauding that wonderful specific which involved 
the enactment of a stringent fugitive slave law ; 
the admission of California with a free-labor 
constitution ; the organization of Utah and New 
Mexico as territories on the basis of popular sov- 
ereignty ; and the removal of slave marts from 
the District of Columbia. When at last it received 
the sanction of Congress, Henry Clay, drawn 
from retirement by the stress of public affairs to 
undertake a mission of pacification, felicitated the 
country upon the peace which quickly followed 
and gave promise of permanence. General Lewis 
Cass did not believe that " any party could now 
be built up in relation to the question of slavery." 



2 KANSAS. 

He even contemplated the extraordinary self-de- 
nial of making no more speeches about it. To put 
the matter beyond recall ; to breathe against the 
great disturber 

" The hopeless word of — never to retum," 
fortj^-four members of the thirty-first Congress, 
including many leading politicians of the South, 
solemnly and publicly pledged themselves to op- 
pose the candidacy of any man for the office of 
president, vice-president, congressman, or state 
legislator who should favor "a renewal of sec- 
tional controversy upon the subject of slavery." 
In 1852 Whig and Democratic conventions struck 
hands in eulogizing the compromise, and resolved 
that mankind should be dumb in regard to the 
wrongs of the negro. The triumphant election 
of Franklin Pierce as president turned upon the 
popular conviction, that he was more unqualifiedly 
in sympathy with the policy and measures of con- 
ciliation than his illustrious rival. 

But the drowsy syrups of compromise were 
swallowed in vain. The conflict, which no genius 
of skillful temporizing could effectually stifle, 
after a brief and uneasy repose broke out afresh. 
Slavery, so recently and so impressively banned 
from the halls of national legislation, returned 
thither almost before the applause that greeted its 
exile had died away. In the Senate, December 
4th, 1863, A. C. Dodge of Iowa offered a bill, of 
the usual form and purport, for the organization of 



PRELIMINARY. 3 

Nebraska — a measure unsuccessfully attempted 
during the preceding session. After considera- 
tion by the Committee on Territories, of which 
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was chairman, the 
bill reappeared in the Senate January 4th, 1854, 
variously amended and accompanied by an elabo- 
rate disquisition upon the status of slavery in the 
public domain. 

Though Mr. Douglas did not leave his theo- 
ries in doubt, and insisted that the compromise of 
1850 reposed on principles of congressional non- 
action in the territories, yet he shrank from defi- 
nite, downright announcement that the compro- 
mise of 1820 was at an end. By the terms of 
that adjustment Missouri came into the Union as 
a slave state, but all unoccupied portions of the 
old Louisiana province north of the parallel 36° 
30' were perpetually reserved for freedom. Jan- 
uary 16th, Senator Dixon of Kentucky, dissatis- 
fied with the hesitation of the bill, offered an 
amendment that directly assailed the Missouri 
restriction. Douglas finally espoused the bolder 
policy — not without reluctance and uncomfort- 
able augury. "I have become perfectly satisfied," 
he said to Dixon, " that it is my duty as a fair- 
minded national statesman to cooperate with you 
as proposed, in procuring the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise restriction. It is due to the 
South ; it is due to the constitution ; it is due to 



4 KANSAS. 

that character of consistency which I have here- 
tofore labored to maintain. The repeal, if we 
can effect it, will produce much stir in the free 
states of the Union for a season. Every opprobri- 
ous epithet will be applied to me. I shall prob- 
ably be himg in effigy. . . . This proceeding may 
end my political career. But acting under the 
sense of duty which actuates me, I am prepared 
to make the sacrifice." 

Douglas recalled the bill, which was subjected 
to repeated and essential revisions. In its ulti- 
mate form, as reported from the workshop of the 
committee February 7th, it cancelled the Missouri 
Compromise ; cut Nebraska into halves — styling 
the southern section Kansas and the northern 
Nebraska ; and enunciated the doctrine that citi- 
zens of the United States, peopling the territories, 
have plenary jurisdiction over all their domestic 
institutions. 

The debate which instantly sprang up on the 
reappearance of the slavery question in Congress 
— inferior to none of its predecessors in violence 
or duration of parliamentary noise — fell below the 
contest of 1850 in freshness of thought and ex- 
pression. It affords no exhibition of scenical and 
oratorical tableaux so memorable as when Cal- 
houn, wrecked in health but with intellect and 
power of will still unbroken, listened to the 
reading of his last speech, thickly sown with anx- 
ieties and ill-boding ; as when Daniel Webster on 



PRELIMINARY. 6 

the 7th of March rallied all the splendid forces of 
his oratory and renown for an assault on the anti- 
slavery movement — the tendency and outcome of 
which had been " not to enlarge, but to restrain, 
not to set free but to bind faster, the slave popu- 
lation of the South." 

Douglas did not assume a new role by leading 
the crusade against congressional restriction in 
the territories. He bore a distinguished part in 
the compromise of 1850, of which popular sover- 
eignty constituted a prominent if not paramount 
feature. Alexander H. Stephens, who has given 
in his " War between the States " interesting de- 
tails not generally known of its evolution through 
private conferences between representative men of 
the North and the South, argues with apparent 
conclusiveness that popular sovereignty " was the 
compromise of that year ; " that " the other asso- 
ciated measures all depended upon it." Mr. Doug- 
las, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Ter- 
ritories, introduced bills for the organization of 
Utah and New Mexico in harmony with the con- 
ference adjustments. " A few weeks afterward," he 
said in a speech March 3d, 1854, " the committee 
of thirteen took these two bills and put a wafer 
between them and reported them back to the 
Senate as one bill, with some slight amendments. 
One of these amendments was that the territorial 
legislatures should not legislate upon the subject 
of African slavery. I objected to that provision 



6 KANSAS. 

upon the ground that it subverted the great prin- 
ciple of self-government upon which the bill had 
been originally framed by the territorial commit- 
tee. On the first trial the Senate refused to strike 
it out, but subsequently did so, after full debate, 
in order to establish that principle as the rule of 
action in territorial organizations." William H. 
Seward, silent on this particular point during the 
earlier stages of the Kansas struggle, substantially 
admitted at a later period all that Stephens and 
Douglas claimed. The pacification of 1850, he 
repeatedly conceded, secured for Utah and New 
Mexico " the right to choose freedom or slavery 
when ripened into states." 

While Douglas possessed some capital qualifi- 
cations for leadership ; while his resources em- 
braced remarkable endowments of rude, boister- 
ous, half-educated force, of invincible self-as- 
sertion, of insolent and unsurpassed dexterity 
in the practices of forensic gladiatorship, yet he 
was weak in those essential qualities and inspira- 
tions that spring out of a profound ethical convic- 
tion. In regard to the moral aspects of slavery, 
which stirred the conscience of the civilized world, 
he affected a phlegmatic, nonchalant sentiment — 
an indiflFerence whether it was voted up or down 
in the territories. 

Southern congressmen, reinforced by liberal 
Democratic contingents from the North, rallied 
with enthusiasm in support of popular sovereignty. 



PRELIMINARY. T 

This doctrine had been uncordially received by all 
parties on its appearance in the arena of politics. 
" Well do I remember," said Thomas H. Benton 
in the House of Representatives, April 25th, 1854, 
" the day when it was first shown in the Senate. 
Mark Antony did not better remember the day 
when Caesar first put on that mantle through 
which he was afterwards pierced with three and 
twenty envious stabs. It was in the Senate in 
1848, and was received ... as the quintessence of 
nonsense." In 1854 Southern political sentiment 
blew from an opposite quarter. Then Southern 
leaders accepted popular sovereignty with enthu- 
siasm as a providential expedient for the defense 
and extension of their social institutions. They 
argued that Congress had no legitimate compe- 
tency to draw lines of restriction across the public 
domain, which excluded one half of the country 
from fair and equal occupancy of it ; that the 
Missouri Compromise was in no sense a compact, 
as it lacked every element of state and party con- 
sent ; that the principle of popular sovereignty, 
the right of communities, state and territorial, to 
legislate for themselves, is distinctly and emphat- 
ically an American doctrine ; that it was the issue 
at stake in the colonial struggle with Great Brit- 
ain and in the crisis of 1850 ; that the much-quoted 
anti-slavery sentimentalities of the fathers of the 
republic carry little weight because notable ad- 
vances in sociology have been made since their day, 



8 KAI^SAS. 

because tlie domestic institutions of the South, 
tested by a wider experience, are seen to embody 
and define the great race-subordinations of nature. 
Besides, the geographical makeshift failed to tran- 
quillize sectional disturbances, as it furnished abo- 
litionists a precedent for intermeddling. " It is a 
disimion Ime," said Representative Caskie of Vir- 
ginia. " No, sir," exclaimed Senator Butler of 
South Carolina, " instead of Peace standing on the 
Missouri line with healing in her wings and olive- 
branches in her hands, it has been Electra with 
snakes hissing from her head and the torch of dis- 
cord in her hand." 

The champions of popular sovereignty disa- 
greed as to the time when the inhabitants of a 
territory might constitutionally exercise the right 
'"'• to form and regulate their domestic institutions 
in their own way." Current Southern construc- 
tions, which the Supreme Court afterwards con- 
firmed, maintained that nothing could be done 
previous to the formation of a state constitution. 
Douglas insisted, on the contrary, that the people 
could act legally and effectively whenever they 
pleased. Among the questions propounded to 
him by Abraham Lincoln in the joint debates of 
1858, there was one which touched this point. 
Douglas replied that as slavery could not exist a 
day nor an hour anywhere, unless supported by 
local police regulations which the territorial legis- 
lature must establish, the people need only elect 



PRELIMINARY. 9 

anti-slavery representatives effectually to balk the 
introduction of it, whatever course the Supreme 
Court might pursue. In other words, decisions of 
the highest legal tribunal could be successfully 
evaded. 

Congressional opposition to the Kansas-Ne- 
braska legislation marshaled chiefly under three 
leaders, — Sumner, Chase, and Seward. Other 
well-known men, like Samuel Houston, John Bell, 
Thomas H. Benton, and Edward Everett, were 
among the dissenters ; but the trio, inferior to 
none of their associates in ability, and representa- 
tive of a more radical antagonism to slavery than 
was in repute among them, passed easily and nat- 
urally into leadership. 

In Charles Sumner, brilliant, scholarly, persist- 
ent, courageous, impassioned, at home in tasks of 
rhetoric rather than of statesmanship, — suffusing 
his opinions with personal intensities that some- 
times passed over into intolerance, — the fiercer, 
extremer phases of anti-slaveryism found fitting 
utterance. 

Salmon P. Chase, a man of large, roundabout, 
intellectual mould, came up out of Democratic 
/ antecedents, from the influence of which he was 
/ never wholly emancipated. Persuaded that the 
Wliigs could not be roused to take the field 
against Southern encroachments, he purposed to 
recruit the Democratic party for that service. 
The dream proved sufficiently unrealizable. Nei- 



10 KANSAS. 

ther Whigs nor Democrats were prepared to en- 
list in anti-slavery enterprises. Despairing of the 
older parties if abandoned to the impulse of in- 
clination and bias, he threw himself into the Free- 
Soil movement with an expectation of holding 
them to the slavery problem by some balance-of- 
power tactics. Though Chase's radicalism did 
not fall much below Sumner's theoretically, yet 
a cooler, more judicial and practical temperament 
gave it less violent and exasperating tongue. 

William H. Seward did not rank himseK among 
abolitionists, though in the debate of 1850 he 
pronounced " all legislative compromises radically 
wrong and essentially vicious," and enunciated the 
doctrine of a higher law in which constitutions as 
well as statutes must be read, — sentiments that 
naturally would have driven him into their camp. 
But a cool, sagacious conservatism, a corrective, 
unfanatical habit of looking before and after, qual- 
ified his radicalism and held it down to consti- 
tutional methods. He was content to let slavery 
I alone so long as it remained within the ring-fence 
/ of stipulated boundaries. Keen, adroit, felicitous 
in diction, endued with unmistakable intuitions of 
statesmanship, at times soaring into regions of 
philosophico-poetic inspiration, he was surpassed 
by no contemporary politician in comprehension 
of the present or in forecast of the future. 

These men and their coadjutors, o^^ponents of 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, protested that the cir- 



PRELIMINARY. 11 

cumstances under which the restrictive Missoviri 
legislation originated, the sanction of Monroe's 
administration in which Calhoun figured, the re- 
peated acts of congressional recognition and re- 
affirmation, all conspired to clothe it with the 
moral force of a constitutional provision. That 
the latest pacification wrecked the compact of 
thirty years before they indignantly denied. " It 
is said," remarked Benton of Missouri, " that the 
measures of 1850 superseded this compromise of 
1820. ... If it was repealed in 1850, why do it 
over again in 1854 ? Why kill the dead ? " There 
was voluminous argument that slavery existed 
by virtue of local legislation only, which had no 
extra-state validity ; that in the territories, under- 
age wards of the general government for whom no 
inconsiderable fraction of their civil machinery is 
provided arbitrarily and without consultation, 
popular sovereignty in the nature of things must 
be fragmentary and delusive ; that the federal con- 
stitution, interpreted by the utterances and meas- 
ures of the men who made it, is not committed to 
slavery, but dips unmistakably toward liberty. 
The possible, nay probable consequences of a war 
upon the Missouri settlement — consequences even 
gathering, darkening, turmoiling, 

" As clouds grow on the blast, 
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast " — 

were luridly set forth. Unspeakable calamities 
would follow this profane attempt to remove an- 



12 KANSAS. 

'■ cient land-marks. " It will light up a fire in the 
Y country," said Mr. Chase, with a touch of prophecy 
\ in his words, " which may consume those who 
h kindled it." 

The debate, which began in January and ter- 
minated on the morning of May 26th with a con- 
tinuous discussion iu the Senate of thirteen hours, 
was emphatically an affair in which there were 
" blows to take as well as blows to give." How- 
ever triumphant the anti-slavery argument may 
have been along ethical and humanitarian lines, it 
was not equally successful in other parts of the 
field. The Missouri Compromise hinged upon de- 
grees of latitude and longitude, upon the principle 
of parceling unorganized portions of the country 
between the North and the South. It was not, to 
say the least, an ideal basis of settlement for ques- 
tions surcharged with gravest moral considera- 
tions. That the enemies of slavery in 1848 and 
again in 1850 should have declined to expand "the 
time-honored and venerated policy of a geograph- 
ical line " into a rule of universal application is not 
surprising. The past of the Missouii Compromise 
must not be disturbed, but they moved heaven 
and earth to hedge it out of an enlarged future. 
In fact, their creed of territorial philosophy was 
i — no more slave states. The corapiomise of 1850^ 
? however, rejected all articles of restriction, and 
/ sanctioned the principle of popular sovereignty. 
The adoption of a new policy, applying to terri- 



PRELIMINARY. 13 

tones in the main but not literally, and absolutely 
untouched by the elder agreement, may not have 
technically snuffed out the compact of 1820, 
though such eminent legal authorities as Rufus 
Choate and Daniel Webster are quoted in the 
affirmative. Yet, practically, the effect of it 
could only be to overlay and obliterate the Mis- 
souri bargain. Mr. Douglas, in the bill organiz- 
ing Kansas and Nebraska, simply followed the 
latest precedent. 

The congressional pother, which resulted in the 
passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by a vote of 
thirty-seven ayes to fourteen nays in the Senate 
and of one hundred and thirteen ayes to one hun- 
dred nays in the House of Representatives, roused 
intense excitement throughout the North, where 
popular sovereignty had an evil, pro-slavery repu- 
tation. Conventions, town-meetings, state legis- 
latures denounced the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise. Clergymen in great numbers and of all 
denominations swelled the chorus of protest, a 
spectacle that caused much unfriendly comment 
in conservative quarters. "Alas, alas," lamented 
William M. Tweed of New York in the House 
of Representatives, " such a profanation of the 
American pulpit was never before known. The 
head of the devout follower droops." Northern 
congressmen who befriended the Nebraska busi- 
ness generally found life a burden. In newspa- 
pers of the day lists of these reprobates appeared 



14 KANSAS. 

bordered with black lines and annotated with un- 
eulogizing comments. Mr. Douglas's rueful pre- 
monition that storms of indignation and wrath 
would assail him was signally fulfilled. " I could 
then travel," he said in an address at Spring- 
field, Illinois, during the summer of 1858, " from 
Boston to Chicago by the light of my own effi- 
gies. 

The immediate political consequences of the 
Kansas-Nebraska agitation were startling. It ut- 
terly overthrew the Whig party and reduced the 
Democratic party from national to sectional rank. 
" Where are the men of the North," asked Repre- 
sentative English of Indiana during the Lecomp- 
ton debate in 1858, " who voted for the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill in this House ? I look around this 
hall in vain for their familiar faces. The gentle- 
man from Pennsylvania and myself , . . are the 
only persons voting for the bill who have retained 
seats on this floor. And in the Senate I am told 
but one Northern man who voted for it has been 
reelected. Sir, the passage of that bill was fol- 
lowed by an overwhelming defeat of the Democ- 
racy in all the Northern States." 

But to these destructive and crippling tenden- 
cies a remarkable antithesis appeared, in the in- 
tegration of Northern anti-slavery sentiment that 
ensued. The pioneers of abolitionism purposely 
and persistently devoted themselves to tasks of 
agitation — to the creation of anti-slavery senti- 



PRELIMINARY. 15 

ment in the North — a measure successfully prose- 
cuted in the face of the most formidable difficul- 
ties — and to the exasperation of the South, " so 
that every step she takes, in her blindness, is one 
step more toward ruin." Statesmen they were 
in the unpartisan, ethical, future-moulding sense 
of that word — politicians they declined to be. 
By the very necessities of their mission they 
were dedicated to comparative isolation — solitary 
knights bestriding 

" The winged Hippogriff, Reform." 

They did not melt into the great popular move- 
ments which their personal heroism, their bril- 
liancy of newspaper and platform utterance, their 
genius of moral intuition had made possible. 
Free-Soilism is the masterpiece of later abolition- 
ists, who, declining to abjure politics, entered the 
arena of party-building ; but Free-Soilism reached 
its highest uses in offering a convenient rallying 
point for the great Northern uprising. That 
memorable outburst of moral indignation against 
the slave-oligarchy was no fire of straw. The 
comparatively insignificant anti-slavery vote cast 
in 1852 swelled, under its powerful stimulus, to 
a total in 1856 of more than thirteen hundred 
thousand. From this relative and partial success 
the mighty revolution stormed on to a complete 
triumph in the presidential election of 1860. 
Beyond that decisive event lie the tremendous 



16 KANSAS. 

years of war for the Union. " We are on the eve 
of a great national transaction," said Mr. Seward, 
in the concluding hours of the Kanoas-Nebraska 
debate, — "a transaction that will close a cycle 
in the history of our country." 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE FIELD, 

The territory of Kansas extended westward 
from Missouri to the summit of the Rocky Moun- 
tains and northward from the thirty- seventh to 
the fortieth parallel, embracing an area of about 
one hundred and twenty - six thousand square 
miles. The history of this vast, mid-continent re- 
gion belongs mainly to yesterday. Barely the 
life-period of a single generation has elapsed since 
civilization touched it otherwise than casually and 
fugitively. 

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado is reputed to be 
the first European who visited Kansas. In 1540 
he set out from Mexico with a small army of 
Spaniards and Indians to seize Cibola, a province 
situated somewhere in New Mexico, and rumored 
to abound in magnificent cities which the prose 
of actual investigation discredited into a few 
wretched hamlets. 

Coronado's disappointments did not end at Ci- 
bola. Notwithstanding that dissuasive experience, 
he fell into the toils of a smooth-tongued fabling 
Indian nicknamed the Turk, " on account of his 

2 



18 KANSAS. 

resemblance to the people of that nation," a ras- 
cal who vapored about a country of remarkable 
wealth and splendor lying far eastward across the 
plains and called Quivera. 

In the spring of 1541 the credulous Spaniard 
broke camp at Tiguex, a province of the Rio 
Grande valley, near the mouth of the Puerco, 
to which he retired after a bootless exploration 
of Cibola, and began a new quest. In thirty-seven 
days he reached the Arkansas. Here provisions 
began to fail, and the bulk of the expedition re- 
traced its steps to New Mexico. The route of 
Coronado, who pushed on with a few picked men, 
is bestead with uncertainties. Nothing better can 
be offered in regard to it than conjectures more or 
less plausible. He appears to have advanced from 
southwestern Kansas " through mighty plains and 
sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome and bare of 
wood. . . . All that way the plains are as full of 
crook back oxen as the mountain Serena in Spain 
is of sheep. . . . They were a great succor for the 
hunger and want of bread which our people stood 
in. One day it rained in that plain a great shower 
of hail, as big as oranges, which caused many 
tears, weaknesses, and vows." The expedition 
probably called a halt in northeastern Kansas 
near the Nebraska line. One point only is abso- 
lutely clear — Coronado had been duped again. 
No rich spoils, no flamboyant fervors of architec- 
ture, were discovered ; no imperial cities 



THE FIELD. 19 

" Such as vision 
Builds from the purple crags and silver towers 
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 
Of kingliest masonry." 

It is doubtful whether any single feature of the 
expedition afforded the Spaniards more retrospec- 
tive satisfaction than the fate of the tricky Turk. 
Confessing that he had lured them into the desert 
to accomplish their ruin, he was promptly and it 
may be presumed enthusiastically strangled. This 
first reconnaissance of civilization upon Kansas 
achieved nothing of practical importance. 

After the departure of Coronado no Europeans 
visited Kansas for an interval of more than a hun- 
dred and seventy-five years. Meanwhile Louisi- 
ana, a vast territory vaguely denominated as the 
region drained by the Mississippi and its affluents, 
passed into the possession of France. Of this 
enormous tract Kansg,s, with the exception of some 
unimportant territorial additions from the Texas 
cession of 1850, formed a portion. It was not 
until 1719 that Frenchmen found their way thi- 
ther. In that year M. du Tissenet, acting under 
orders of M. de Bienville, governor of Louisiana, 
made a hasty tour of exploration, found the coun- 
try "beautiful and well timbered," native war- 
riors "stout, well made and great," lead mines 
" abundant, . . . and erected a column with the 
arms of the king placed upon it 27th of Septem- 
ber, 1719." 

This cursory and inconsequential visit alarmed 



20 KANSAS, 

the Spaniards. In New Mexico there was a 
movement to save Kansas from the Frenchmen. 
An armed caravan left Santa F^ in 1721 on this 
errand, but it was ill-managed, and blundered into 
total destruction. 

To guard against danger from New Mexico m 
the future, the French erected in 1722-23 a forti- 
fication called Fort Orleans, upon an island in the 
Missouri River near the mouth of the Osage, and 
M. de Bourgmont was put in command. During 
the following year Bourgmont made an extended 
tour in Kansas. With the various Indian tribes 
who inhabited the region he assiduously cultivated 
pacific relations. There were receptions, speeches, 
pipe-smokings, distributions of presents, peace- 
dances, and general assurances of profound and 
mutual regard. It is singular that the finale 
of this much-protesting intercourse should have 
been a tragedy of utter completeness and atrocity, 
but such is the case. In 1725 Fort Orleans was 
captured by Kansas savages and the garrison 
slaughtered. Details are wholly unknown, as not 
a white man survived to recount the story, and the 
stolid, close-mouthed Indian never broke silence. 

The massacre effectually blighted the enthu- 
siasm of Frenchmen for explorations in Kansas. 
Indeed, from 1725 until the United States pur- 
chased it of Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1803, the ter- 
ritory dropped almost completely out of the knowl- 
edge of mankind — glided back into the blankness 



THE FIELD. 21 

and vacuity of a terra incognita. The expeditions 
of Lewis and Clark in 1804-06, and of Lieutenant 
Z. M. Pike in 1806-07, furnish almost the ear- 
liest scientific and trustworthy information. A 
portion of it was traversed in 1819-20 by a detach- 
ment of Major S. H. Long's party. To these 
early American explorers Kansas hardly present- 
ed an attractive or promising appearance. The 
beautiful prairies of the eastern border, 

"Billowy bays of grass ever rolliug in shadow and sunshine," 

kindled their enthusiasm, but in the interior and 
to the westward they found a hopeless reach of 
desert, well enough for Indians — for white men 
untenantable. Lieutenant Pike considered " the 
borders of the Arkansaw river . . . the paradise 
(terrestrial) of our territories for the wandering 
savages. ... I believe there are buffalo, elk, and 
deer sufficient on the banks of the Arkansaw alone, 
if used without waste, to feed all the savages in 
the United States territory one century." But 
the region could not support white men in large 
numbers even along " the rivers Kanses, La Platte, 
Arkansaw and their branches. . . . The wood now 
in the country would not be sufficient for a mod- 
erate share of population more than fifteen years, 
and then it would be out of the question to think 
of using any of it in manufactories, consequently 
their houses would be built entirely of mud-brick 
(like those of New Spain) or of the brick manufac- 



22 KANSAS. 

tured with fire. But possibly time may make dis- 
coveries of coal mines, wliich would render the 
country habitable." 

With the establishment of American occupancy 
an era of migration set in through Kansas toward 
the Pacific slope — a migration at first slender, 
capricious, and without system, but acquiring ulti- 
mately volume, method, and persistence sufficient 
to imprint clear-cut trails sheer across the mighty 
plains. Traders, eager to seize upon new and in- 
viting avenues of commerce ; travelers, ambitious 
to compel the half unknown world beyond the 
Missouri to yield up its secrets ; Kearney's sol- 
diers, with greedy eyes fixed on New Mexico ; Mor- 
mons, fleeing into the wilderness before the wrath 
of civilization ; gold-hunters, aflame with visions 
of sudden wealth among the mines of California, 
— such was the heterogeneous, intermittent mob 
that trooped across Kansas during the years im- 
mediately preceding the Kansas-Nebraska legisla- 
tion. 

At the time of organization the territory was an 
Indian reservation, inhabited by about a score of 
native and imported tribes, among which a white 
population of six or seven hundred civilians had 
drifted, who congregated mainly around the mili- 
tary stations, the trading posts, and the half dozen 
denominational mission schools. The Kansas-Ne- 
braska bill ejected the Indians from their homes 
and sent them elsewhere. This consideration was 



TEE FIELD. 23 

not overlooked by its opponents. Edward Everett 
protested in polished phrase. Senator Bell of Ten- 
nessee denounced federal unfaith in the matter of 
Indian treaties, which " set aside at our discretion 
and trample under foot the most explicit and sol- 
emn guarantees." General Sam Houston made 
an impassioned plea in behalf of Indian rights, 
but the spoliating measure could not be aiTested. 
The aborigines were successfully bargained out 
of the way. Some of them removed at once, and 
others more leisurely. 

Thus in the heart of the nation there was staked 
off a great territory for experiments in popular 
sovereignty as a Union-saving expedient, a terri- 
tory substantially unhistoried, with no intrusive, 
meddlesome past that could mar the trial. Thither 
hurried partisans of the North and South — repre- 
sentatives of incompatible civilizations — to take 
a hand in the impending struggle. It was a cross- 
purposed and variorum migration, — hirelings, ad- 
venturers, blatherskites, fanatics, refoi'mers, phi- 
lanthropists, patriots. That such a medley of 
humanity, recruited from Moosehead Lake to the 
Rio Grande, responsive to all the sectional ani- 
mosities which distracted and imperiled the coun- 
try, conscious after some vague sort that great 
destinies might hinge upon their mission, would 
transform the wilderness of Kansas into an imme- 
diate Utopia was hardly to be anticipated. 
" So foul a skv clears not without a storm." 



CHAPTER HI. 

DBIVING DOWN STAKES. 

Western Missouri, containing in 1854 fifty 
thousand slaves, worth at a moderate valuation 
twenty-five millions of dollars, was fully awake 
to the momentous social and political perils that 
lurked in the compromise of 1820. Throughout 
that region an uneasy, apprehensive, feverish state 
of affairs existed. The declaration of a large and 
representative pro-slavery convention at Lexing- 
ton, Missouri, in July, 1855, that "the enforce- 
ment of the restriction in the settlement of Kansas 
was virtually the abolition of slavery in Missouri," 
gave formal expression to convictions that had 
gradually become general. 

Leadership in these graver exigencies fell mainly 
upon David R. Atchison, senator from Missouri 
during the years 1841-55, a man of commanding 
presence, social, generous, passionate, a stump 
orator of no mean order. " Senator Atchison 
. . . may be considered the exponent of South- 
ern oijinion," said " Lynceus " in " Letters for 
the People on the Present Crisis," writing at 
St. Louis, September 7, 1853. " In speeches he 
has been making in various portions of the State 



DRIVING DOWN STAKES. 25 

he is reported as taking the ground . . . that 
he will fight the admission of Nebraska unless it 
. . . shall come in as a slave territory, or, at 
least, with the question left open and all done 
to foster slavery that is possible." Atchison de- 
nounced the restriction, and painted with a heavy 
brush the calamities that would follow if aboli- 
tionists should get a footing in Kansas. On this 
point the Lexington convention faithfully echoed 
his sentiments — "a horde of our western savages 
with avowed purposes of destruction would be 
less formidable neighbors." Atchison thought 
that the interests of Missouri required nothing 
beyond formal repeal of the offensive legislation 
which laid restrictions upon slavery*. In that 
event Missouri would be able to take care of her- 
self, and of Kansas also. 

The Missouri border abounded in igneous and 
explosive materials. Typical Southern folk of 
the better grade, intelligent, hospitable, courteous, 
high-minded, were not wanting. Yet other sorts 
of humanity had large representation : numerous 
and unhappy varieties of " white trash," demoral- 
ized veterans oE the Mexican war, adventurers 
graduated from the plains or the mountains of Col- 
orado or the mining camps of the Pacific coast, 
— thoughtless, passionate, whiskey-guzzling, guf- 
fawing, unconventional men 

" "Who meeting Caesar's self, would slap his back, 
Call him ' Old horse ' aud challenge to a drink." 



26 KANSAS. 

The border experienced a boisterous revival of 
pro-slaveryism, and the reputation of abolitionists, 
never very high thereabouts, sank into utter dis- 
credit. 

No sooner had President Pierce signed the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill than companies of Missou- 
rians pushed into Kansas and seized upon exten- 
sive tracts of the best lands, not waiting, in some 
cases, for the Indians to get out of the way. A 
convenient simplicity marked their proceedings. 
The laws of preemption, literally interpreted, re- 
quired the erection of cabins and periods of actual 
residence : but exigencies are unfriendly to restric- 
tive and dilatoiy technicalities. At all events, 
they must not be allowed to imperil great public 
interests. That the squatter should simply notch 
a few trees in evidence of occupancy, or arrange 
half-a-dozen rails upon the ground and call it a 
cabin, or post a scrawl claiming proprietorship and 
threatening to shoot intermeddlers at sight, seems 
to have been all that was considered absolutely 
essential. These energetic first-comers were mostly 
amateur immigrants, — men who bestirred them- 
selves in the interest of slavery rather than at the 
solicitation of personal concerns, who proposed to 
reside in Missouri, but to vote and fight in Kansas 
should necessity arise for such duality. 

On the 10th of June, 1854, more than six weeks 
before the arrival of the earliest New England 
colony, though disquieting rumors of invasion 



DRIVING DOWN STAKES. 27 

from the East had begun to be rife, there was 
a convention of pro-slavery men at Salt Creek 
Valley to discuss territorial affairs. The senti- 
ments of this initial Kansas convention, — forerun- 
ner of an enormous brood of partisan meetings, — 
sentiments loudly chorused by the whole pack of 
border newspapers, took form in a series of twelve 
resolutions which, in addition to considerable 
frank advice for the benefit of abolitionists, an- 
nounced that slavery already existed in Kansas, 
and urged its friends to lose no time in strength- 
ening and extending it to the utmost. 

Missouri leaders perceived the necessity and the 
expediency of immediately flooding Kansas with 
slaves. They believed at that time and still be- 
lieve, that this strategy, courageously and persist- 
ently prosecuted, would have won the day. Dur- 
ing the winter of 1854-55, B. F. Stringfellow 
visited Washington in the interest of an extensive 
slave-colonization. He unfolded the project in a 
conference of prominent Southern congressmen, 
and showed that servile labor could not be less suc- 
cessful in Kansas than in Missouri, a notably 
prosperous commonwealth ; that the territorial 
crisis called as loudly for negroes as for voters. 
" Two thousand slaves," urged Stringfellow, " ac- 
tually lodged in Kansas will make a slave state 
out of it. Once fairly there, nobody will disturb 
them." This not unpromising scheme elicited 
ample pledges of cooperation, not one of which 
was ever redeemed. 



28 KANSAS. 

Several pro-slavery towns sprang up in the terri- 
tory, situated principally on the Missouri River be- 
tween Kansas City and the Nebraska line : Kicka- 
poo, a savage, imjilacable little burg, containing in 
its palmiest days twenty-five or thirty cabins, now 
utterly collapsed ; Atchison, christened in honor of 
the Missouri senator, second only to Kickapoo in 
political venom, but unlike that almost expunged 
hamlet surviving its early mistakes and growing 
into the most important town in northeastern 
Kansas; Leavenworth, ruled mainly though not 
wholly by Southern sentiment, which more than 
once maddened into deeds of brutal violence, sur- 
passing all Kansas rivals, during the first quarter 
century of its history, in population and commer- 
cial importance ; Leeompton, somewhat inland, 
political headquarters of the pro-slavery party, 
blighted in its downfall, rudely awakened from 
brilliant dreams to the realities of a ragged, 
straggling frontier village. 

Early in the summer of 1854, rumors that pow- 
erful capitalized societies were forming in New 
England for the purpose of sending anti-slavery 
colonies to Kansas alarmed the people of western 
Missouri, and suggested doubts whether the re- 
peal of the old restrictive compromise legislation 
would eventually prove as fortunate for their in- 
terests as they dreamed. They had looked upon 
Kansas as an easy, inevitable prey, a likelihood 
almost universally conceded throughout the North- 



DRIVING DOWN STAKES. 29 

ern States. " The fate of Kansas was sealed," said 
" The Liberator " of July 13th, 1855, "the very 
moment the Missouri Compromise was repealed." 

In the midst of general despondency it oc- 
curred to Eli Thayer, of Worcester, Massachusetts, 
that the public had misread the situation ; that 
apparent disasters were only successes disguised ; 
that the calamities befallen the anti-slavery cause 
in Congress might be retrieved hj tactics of organ- 
ized emigration, — a contest in which the South- 
ern oligarchy, much-cumbered and heavily shod, 
could not cope with freedom in its nimbler move- 
ments. While the congressional struggle was in 
progress, before the fate of the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill had been settled, he wrote out a constitution 
for the " Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company " 
and procured a legislative charter. Thayer orig- 
inally contemplated a formidable corporation, 
with a capital of five millions of dollars, by which 
he expected to control migration — the vast west- 
ering: flux of natives as well as foreigners — in the 
interest of liberty ; to marshal it against the ag- 
gressions of the South ; to secure the territories in 
the first place, and then turn his revolutionizing 
agencies upon the slave states themselves. 

The public declined to embark in this wholesale 
and magnificent project. Abolitionists repudiated 
expedients of colonization as " false in principle," 
and able to compass at best only " a transplanted 
Massachusetts," — a futile and unworthy consum- 



30 KANSAS. 

mation, since even " the original Massachusetts has 
been tried and found wanting," — while the gen- 
eral skepticism took practical and disastrous shape 
in failure of contributions. The enterprise was 
verging toward financial collapse when Amos A. 
y^ Lawrence, of Boston, came to the rescue and ad- 
vanced out of his own pocket the funds necessary 
to put life into it. 

No organization was ever effected under the 
first charter. It saddled objectionable monetary 
liabilities upon the individuals who might associ- 
ate under it, and was abandoned. The whole busi- 
ness then passed into the hands of Thayer, Law- 
rence, and J. M. S. Williams, who were consti- 
tuted trustees, and managed affairs in a half per- 
sonal fashion until February, 1855, when a second 
charter was obtained and an association formed 
early in March with slightly rephrased title — 
" The New England Emigrant Aid Company " — 
and with John Carter Brown, of Providence, Rhode 
Island, as president. In the conduct of the com- 
pany, the trustees who bridged the interval be- 
tween the first and second charters continued t^ 
be a chief directive and inspirational force. Mr. 
Thayer preached the gospel of organized emigra- 
tion with tireless and successful enthusiasm, while 
Mr. Lawrence discharged the burdensome but all- 
important duties of treasurer. Among the twenty 
original directors were Dr. Samuel Cabot, Jr., John 
Lowell, and William B. Spooner, Boston ; J. P. 



DRIVING DOWN STAKES. 31 

Williston, Northampton ; Charles H. Bigelow, 
Lawrence, and Nathan Durfee, Fall River. The 
list of directors was subsequently enlarged to 
thirty-eight, and included the additional names of 
Dr. S. G. Howe, Rev. Edward Everett Hale, Bos- 
ton ; George L. Stearns, Medford ; Horace Bush- 
nell, Hartford, Connecticut ; Prof. Benj. Silliman, 
Sr., New Haven, Connecticut ; and Moses H. Grin- 
nell, New York. The company in its reorganized 
shape receded, at least temporarily, from all whole- 
sale projects, and devoted itself to the problem of 
planting free-labor towns in Kansas. 

The facilities offered by the Boston organiza- 
tion, in addition to the obvious advantages of as- 
sociated effort, were reduction in cost of trans- 
portation, oversight by competent conductors, in- 
vestments of capital in mills, hotels, and other 
improvements which would mitigate and abbrevi- 
ate the hardships of pioneering. Though the de- 
sign of the organization was frankly avowed, yet 
anybody, whether in sympathy with its mission or 
not, might freely avail himself of its advantages. 
^The obligations of the emigrants who went to 
Kansas under its wing were wholly implied and 
informal. Assuredly it offered no premium for 
extremer types of anti-slavery men. On the con- 
trary, a Hunkerish strain of conservatism prevailed 
among the colonists which naturally provoked crit- 
icism. " The Liberator " of June 1st, 1855, speak- 
ing of the personnel of the companies already sent 



32 KANSAS. 

on to Kansas, remarked that '' hardly a single 
abolitionist can be found among all who have mi- 
grated to that country. . . . Before they emi- 
grated they gave little or no countenance to the 
anti-slavery cause at home. ... If they had no 
pluck here what could rationally be expected of 
them in the immediate presence of the demoniacal 
spirit of slavery ? ... To place any reliance on 
their anti-slavery zeal or courage is to lean upon a 
broken staff." 

The number of colonists who reached Kansas 
over the lines of the Emigrant Aid Company was 
not large. During the summer and autumn of 
1854 five companies were dispatched, which com- 
prised a total of seven hundred and fifty souls. 
From the opening of navigation on the Missouri 
Kiver in 1855 until July as many more companies 
were fitted out, though the numbers fell off to six 
hundred and thirty-five. About one hundred and 
forty thousand dollars were expended first and 
last in prosecution of Kansas colonization. 

But the work of the Boston organization cannot 
be adequately exhibited by arithmetical com- 
putations. A vital, capital part of it lay in spheres 
where mathematics are ineffectual — lay in its 
alighting upon a feasible method, which was 
copied far and wide, of dealing with a grave polit- 
ical emergency, and in the backing of social and 
monetary prestige that it secured for the unknown 
pioneers at the front. 



DRIVING DOWN STAKES. 33 

If volume and bitterness of criticism afford any 
trustworthy standard by which its efficiency may 
be tested, the Emigrant Aid Company played no 
subordinate part in the Kansas struggle. Doug- 
las declared that popular sovereignty was struck 
down " by unholy combinations in New England," 
In the opinion of Senator J. A. Bayard, of Dela- 
ware, " whatever evil or loss or suffering or injury 
may result to Kansas, or to the United States at 
large, is attributable as a primary cause to the ac- 
tion of the Emigrant Aid Society of Massachu- 
setts." Senator Green, of Missouri, said in 1861, 
long after the Kansas question had been practi- 
cally settled, that " but for the hot-bed plants that 
have been planted in Kansas through the instru- 
mentality of the Emigrant Aid Society, Kansas 
would have been with Missouri this day." 

The principal representative of the Massachu- 
setts corporation in Kansas — the man who sus- 
tained toward it the most intimate and confiden- 
tial relations, and who mainly shaped its politico- 
financial policy in the territory — was Dr. Charles 
Robinson, of Fitehburg, Massachusetts. To him 
Kansas was not wholly an unknown region when 
the Emigrant Aid Company commissioned him as 
its agent. In 1849 he passed across it on an over- 
land trip to California, and was favorably im- 
pressed with the possibilities of the country. He 
participated rather prominently in the stormy 
experiences through which California passed in 



34 KANSAS. 

1849-51 — experiences which Kansas subsequently 
repeated in many of their salient features. Both 
contests sprang up on the border, abounded in 
anomalies and expedients for which little prece- 
dent could be cited, and exhibited all the law- 
less, blustering, open-throated peculiarities that 
distinguish such events. Not only were the types 
and sorts of humanity involved substantially iden- 
tical, but also, in a degree worthy of passing notice, 
there was repetition among the actors. Missou- 
rians in particular returned betimes from the Pa- 
cific coast to mingle in a fray nearer home. Rob- 
inson learned an effective lesson in the California 
school for the Kansas epoch. 

The Emigrant Aid Company planted a hand- 
ful of towns in the territory — Hampden, which 
disappeared after a little, Wabaunsee, Osawato- 
mie, Manhattan, Topeka, and Lawrence. Of 
these anti - slavery villages the oldest, and for a 
time the chief, was Lawrence. Upon the first 
day of August, 1854, the pioneer party, twenty- 
nine in number, sent out by the Boston society, 
reached the spot where that town was afterwards 
built. The directions given to C. H. Branscomb, 
conductor of the company, were, " proceed through 
the Shawnee Reservation and select the first eli- 
gible site on the south side of the Kansas River." 
Six weeks later a second expedition of one hun- 
dred and fourteen members arrived. In its ear- 
liest and rudimentary stage the village was merely 



DRIVING DOWN STAKES. 36 

a little collection of tents. Then followed, in due 
time, queer, grass-thatcbed huts, copied appar- 
ently from African kraal village models, and rude, 
squat, mud-plastered log-cabins, beyond which the 
line of territorial architecture advanced slowly 
and with difficulty. 

What the new village should be called was a 
matter of some discussion. For a while it had 
various names — Wakarusa, New Boston, Yankee 
Town. Citizens of Worcester, Massachusetts, of- 
fered a library if it should be christened Worces- 
ter. The name Lawrence was finally agreed upon 
in honor of the treasurer of the Emigrant Aid 
Company. " I think I was the first to suggest your 
name for the city," Dr. Robinson wrote Mr. Law- 
rence October 16th, 1854 ; " though I have never 
urged it at all, as I wished every person to be sat- 
isfied in his own mind. . . . Most of our people 
are very much attached to it, and after I explained 
your course in connection with the enterprise 
. . . there was much enthusiasm manifested. . . . 
A committee has been chosen to give a formal 
notice of the naming of the city.'' 

It was unavoidable that a portion of the immi- 
grants fetched from New England to the outposts 
of civilization, set down amidst the privations and 
discomforts of pioneering and in the neighborhood 
of powerful pro-slavery communities — mutterings 
of great social disturbances singing in the upper 
air and threatening to add unknown elements of 



36 KANSAS. 

peril to the hardships of the wilderness — should 
give way to homesickness and despair. They had 
dipped their hopes in the magic dyes of the im- 
agination, had pictured to themselves some re- 
stored paradise on the wonderland plains of Kan- 
sas ; and when the raw, crude, belligerent reality 
dawned upon them, they shook the dust of the 
territory from their feet and returned, disgusted 
with the border, to their old homes. But the 
great majority of colonists, not only from New 
England but also from other Northern States, — 
men and women little given to irresolution, cow- 
ardice, or panic, ruled by exacter, less romantic 
ideas, — were not unprepared to meet the trials 
of the wilderness and the inevitable hostility of 
Missouri. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LESSONS EST POPULAK SOVEREIGNTY. 

The first territorial governor of Kansas was An- 
drew H. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, a mild, easy, 
rhetorical, admirable man, of good intellectual 
parts, well reputed as a lawyer, a national demo- 
crat, and an enthusiastic advocate of popular sov- 
ereignty. A complete assortment of customary 
officials — judges, secretaries, marshals, surveyors, 
land commissioners — was fitted out in Washing- 
ton. One or two gentlemen of leisure, reckoning, 
though wholly without their host, on a dearth of 
local candidates, accompanied these dignitaries 
with design of standing for any desirable office 
the territory might offer. 

Reeder arrived at Fort Leavenworth October 
7th, where a public reception — given by pro-slav- 
ery partisans, who viewed the new governor as 
nothing more than their tool — and a wordy, noisy 
address of welcome awaited him. In responding, 
Reeder pleasantly referred to the reception as " a 
foreshadowing of kindness and confidence " which 
he hoped to receive from citizens of the territory. 
His talk, however, was not wholly given over to 



38 KANSAS. 

eulogy and congratulation. The spirit of violence 
which was already beginning to stir he denounced 
with the fluent boldness and confidence of inexpe- 
rience. " I pledge you," he said, "■ that I will crush 
it out or sacrifice myself in the effort." It was 
an heroic avowal that failed to kindle any enthu- 
siasm whatever among the auditors. 

The governor sensibly prefaced his work in 
Kansas by a tour of observation which consumed 
some weeks. He was anxious to get his knowl- 
edge at first hand — an ambition that did not fa- 
vorably impress the gentry concerned in the Leav- 
enworth reception. They regarded themselves as 
entirely competent and were more than willing 
to furnish information on any point of Kansas af- 
fairs. Then followed a partition of the territory 
into districts, and the election of a delegate to 
Congress November 29th, 1854. 

This first Kansas election never attained the no- 
toriety of the second, which took place four months 
afterwards, yet both experiences present the same 
characteristic features — large and elaborate expe- 
ditions from Missouri to stuff territorial ballot- 
boxes with illegal votes. No defense or apology 
has ever been put forward for these extraordinary 
proceedings except the necessitarian plea of fight- 
ing the devil with fire. The opinion universally 
entertained on the border in 1853 and in the ear- 
lier months of 1854, that the safety of slavery in 
Missouri and its ultimate expansion into Kansas 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 39 

would be assured simply by the repeal of restric- 
tive legislation, showed unmistakable signs of 
weakening in the resolutions adopted at Salt 
Creek Valley. Subsequent events tended to in- 
crease and exasperate the alarm. Rumors now 
flew thick and fast on evil wings that the Emi- 
grant Aid Company and the kindred organiza- 
tions, which sprang up with a tropical luxuriance 
throughout the North, were pushing " military 
colonies " into Kansas, primarily to protect it from 
pro-slavery inroads, and secondarily to attack Mis- 
souri. It is true that the Boston company, in the 
enormous breadth of its original scope, mapped 
out some such prospectus which gave rise to dis- 
composing talk on the border. " Free-state men," 
said B. F. Stringfellow, "before we resorted to 
aggressive measures, openly boasted in the streets 
of Weston that they would drive slavery out of 
Missouri." Discussions in Congress added fuel to 
the fire, and as a consequence there was no small 
stir along the border. " When the people of Mis- 
souri," said Mordecai Oliver, defending his con- 
stituency in the House of Representatives, " saw 
these proceedings on the part of these intermed- 
dlers in the affairs of Kansas and in contradiction 
of the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, they 
were roused — I confess it and confess it with no 
spirit of humiliation, but with pride and to the 
honor of my people — they were roused to an in- 
dignation that knew no bounds." 



40 KANSAS. 

Anger is well enougli in its place, but it would 
have been wise for these furious Missourians to 
make sure of their ground before proceeding to 
extremities. A little investigation would have 
established the fact that the Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany never bought a firelock or furnished its 
patrons with warlike equipments of any sort ; 
that it simply opened a western emigrant agency, 
— a perfectly legitimate transaction which broke 
none of the commandments ethical, political, or 
interstate. Tliough at a later day — after the 
first two election experiences — members of the 
corporation in a private, individual way contrib- 
uted freely toward the purchase of Sharpe's rifles 
for the use of free-state settlers, the corporation 
itself religiously held fast, thi'ough the whole 
period of its operations, to the unmilitary func- 
tions of an ordinary transportation bureau. Had 
the Missourians followed the Massachusetts ex- 
ample and poured into Kansas as actual settlers 
rather than as crusading ballot-box stuffers, their 
fortunes would have thrived the better. 

There was comparatively little at stake in the 
election of November 29th — nothing more than 
the choice of a delegate to Congress, and that 
for a fractional term. Besides, the pro-slavery 
candidate, J. W. Whitfield, a tall, strongly-made, 
rather prepossessing but thick- tongued Tennes- 
sean, holding the office of Indian agent, was not 
particularly objectionable. Whatever partisan 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 41 

sentiments be may have cherislied were kept out 
of sight, and unquestionably he would have been 
elected, had the Missourians stayed at home. 
But rumor and demagogues roundly abused the 
ear of the border. Western Missouri was armed 
and equipped to assail abolitionists in the ter- 
ritory. For this purpose Blue Lodges — a species 
of semi - secret, counter - Massachusetts societies 
designed to operate at Kansas elections — had 
been extensively organized. To allow so much 
froth and fume, so much stir and alarm, to end in 
nothing might present an uncomfortable parallel 
to the historic feat of marching up the hill and 
then marching down again. The leaders chose to 
do something superfluous rather than nothing at 
all. The 29th of November at all events would 
afford opportunity for a little experimenting to 
see what seeds of promise lay in the Blue Lodges. 
So seventeen hundred and twenty-nine Missouri- 
ans invaded different election districts and cast 
as many gratuitous ballots for Whitfield, who 
received his credentials and appeared in Wash- 
ington as the first congressional delegate from 
Kansas, but was not allowed to take his seat. 

The incursion from Missouri was not the only 
original suffrage feature of the election. Rumors 
got abroad that Whitfield designed to impress an 
aboriginal " Native American " vote into his ser- 
vice. The fact of his being an Lidian agent lent 
plausibility to the canard. Some enterprising 



42 KANSAS. 

Yankee hit upon an expedient to forestall any ad- 
vantage that the pro-slavery party might expect 
from extensions of the franchise in that quarter. 
Learning that a certain Delaware chief had re- 
cently enunciated his views on the relative merits 
of Yankees and Missourians — " Good man — 
heap — Yankee town. Missouri — bad — heap 

— heap — heap ! — d — n um " — it occurred to 
him that here might possibly be a neglected field 
of politics worth cultivating. Unfortunately his 
bright thoughts were somewhat belated. They 
did not fairly dawn upon him until the evening 
before election. However, he rode over to the 
Delaware Reservation in the morning, assembled 
the braves, and expounded to them their unap- 
preciated political privileges ; confidently argued 
their right to vote, and proposed that they should 
instantly assert it at the election in progress that 
very day. The Indians drew off by themselves 
and entered upon a council over the matter which 
went on interminably without apparent signs of 
conclusion. The opportunity for " Native Amer- 
ican " or for any other phase of suffrage was rap- 
idly disappearing, and at last the exasperated 
Yankee, in no very conciliatory or complimentary 
dialect, demanded some sort of answer. Finally, 
the oldest chief arose and, appareled in a solemnity 
never surpassed by the judiciary of Tartarus, said 

— " Tinkum four days — den vote heap — heap- 
um ! — sometime — may be ! " 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 4S 

But the most astonishing exhibition of pop- 
ular sovei-eignty occurred in the spring of 1855. 
During the preceding February the authorities 
took a census of the territory, which showed a 
population of 8,601. There were figured out 
2,905 voters, a majority of whom came from 
slave states. Alexander H. Stephens made effec- 
tive use of this fact in a speech in the House of 
Representatives July 31st, 1856. " This census," 
he said, " gives the name of each resident legal 
voter in the territory thirty days before the March 
election. ... I have counted every name on the 
census roll and noted the section of country from 
which the settler migrated, and I find that of 
those who were registered as legal voters of the 
territory in February, a month before the elec- 
tion, 1,670 were from Southern States and only 
1,018 from the entire North. There were 217 
from other countries. . . . The inference which I 
draw from these facts is that there was a decided 
majority of anti-Free-Soilers in the territory . . . 
in the month of February." Mr. Stephens erred 
in classing ail immigrants from Southern States 
as pro-slavery in sentiment. A not inconsiderable 
element among them preferred that Kansas should 
become a free state. 

Both sides appreciated the importance of secur- 
ing the legislature which was to be elected March 
30th. Success in that matter would be a decisive 
victory. In Missouri the excitement surpassed all 



44 KANSAS. 

foregoing experiences. The orators were abroad 
in their most tempestuous mood, denouncing abo- 
litionists and Eastern corporations that sought to 
fang the heart of Missouri as with the tooth of a 
viper. Voting machineries had been tested and 
worked to the satisfaction of the experts who 
devised them. To meet the present emergency, 
it was only necessary to put on a little higher 
pressure. Blue Lodges bestirred themselves en- 
ergetically. There were recruitings, organizations 
of companies, drills, armings, as if some great 
military expedition were afoot. Those who could 
not give personal attention to the preservation of 
law and the purity of public franchise in Kansas 
were exhorted to assist in paying the bills. At a 
meeting in Boonesville, held for the purpose of 
raising money and enthusiasm, a half-tipsy planter 
stumbled up to the speaker's table, and, jflinging 
down a thousand dollars, said, — "I 've just sold a 
nigger for that, and I reckon it 's about my share 
towards cleaning out the dog-gauned Yankees." 

The Missouri expounders of popular sovereignty 
marched into Kansas to assist in the election of a 
territorial legislature — an unkempt, sun-dried, 
blatant, picturesque mob of five thousand men 
with guns upon their shoulders, revolvers stuffing 
their belts, bowie-knives protruding from their 
boot-tops, and generous rations of whiskey in their 
wagons. 

Six thousand three hundred and seven votes 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 45 

were polled on this memorable 30th of March elec- 
tion — nearly eighty per cent, of them by Mis- 
sourians, who, of course, swept the boards. In a 
military point of view the expedition was man- 
aged effectively, and succeeded in distributing pro- 
slavery voters through the territory in such bulks 
as were needed to overcome opposition. The in- 
vaders did not, as a general rule, molest actual res- 
idents unless they showed fight. Judges of elec- 
tion who meekly accepted the situation and re- 
ceived all ballots offered were seldom set aside. 
In cases where they objected to Missourian the- 
ories of suffrage they were promptly removed, 
and their places supplied by men whose scruples 
of conscience did not lie in that direction. 

At Lawrence there was an illustration of the 
milder sort of displacement. One of the judges 
insisted that the first Missourian who presented 
himself at the polls should swear that he re- 
sided in Kansas. The fellow hesitated. He evi- 
dently stumbled at the ethics, lately sanctioned 
by high pro-slavery authority, that in dealing 
with abolitionists scruples of conscience were an 
impertinence. The leader of the gang, seeing 
there promised to be an awkward hitch in the 
programme, ordered him to retire and presented 
himself at the polls, that the on-looking crowd 
might have the benefit of his elucidating and in- 
spiring example. " Are you a resident of Kan- 
sas?" asked the election judge. "I am," the 



46 KANSAS. 

Missourian replied. " Does yonr family live in 
Kansas ? " persisted the former. " It is none of 
your business. If you don't keep your imperti- 
nence to yourself I '11 knock your d — d head from 
your shoulders." The judge, considering his use- 
fulness gone, retired, and thenceforward evei-ybody 
voted who felt so disposed. 

At Bloomington there was an exceptionally suc- 
cessful Bedlam. The judges exhibited obstinacy 
which yielded only to an active revolver and 
bowie-knife treatment. They persisted in theo- 
ries of suffrage altogether too illiberal and nar- 
row for the times. It was intimated that their 
resignations would be accepted — a hint which 
they neglected to act upon. Finally, to expedite 
affairs, a borderer drew his watch and announced 
a five minutes' period of grace — then resignations 
or death. The five minutes expired and nothing 
had been done. An extension of one minute was 
allowed, during which the judges decamped. 

In the main there was but slight occasion for 
anything beyond a savage pretense of violence. 
Numbers, bluster, profanity, and a liberal display 
of fighting-gear completely cowed opposition. The 
visiting voters returned to Missouri, feverish with 
triumph — " We 've made a clean sweep this time." 
Border newspapers rioted in extravagances of fe- 
licitation. " Abolitionism is rebuked," one of 
them screamed, "her fortress stormed, her flag 
draggling in the dust." But dashing into the ter- 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 47 

ritory with a braggart, rub-a-dub publicity, and 
casting four thousand nine hundred and eight 
votes in a total of six thousand three hundred and 
seven, turned out to be a ruinously expensive vic- 
tory. 

In Western INIissouri the policy of invasion re- 
ceived a practically unanimous support. Dissent 
meant trouble for the dissenter. It drew suspicion 
and unpopularity upon him if nothing worse. The 
" Parkville Luminary," venturing to question dis- 
tantly and mildly the expediency of forcing slav- 
ery upon Kansas, was summarily quenched in the 
Missouri River. Now and then an intrepid, out- 
spoken man, with clearer, less jaundiced vision 
than his neighbors, made head against the univer- 
sal frenzy. One person of this stamp, old Tom 
Thorpe, of Platte County, Missouri (a remark- 
able specimen of frontier independence), appeared 
before the Congressional Investigating Committee 
in 1856. "Whenever there was an election in 
the territory," Mr. Thorpe testified, " they were 
fussin' roun' an' gettin' up companies to go, an' 
gettin' bosses an' wagins. They come to me to 
subscribe, but I tole 'em that I was down on this 
thing of votin' over in the territory, an' that Tom 
Thorpe did n't subscribe to no such fixins. They 
jawed me too about it — they did ; but I reckon 
they found old Tom Thorpe could give as good as 
he got. They tole the boys they wanted to make 
Kansas a slave state ; an' they tole 'em the abo- 



48 KANSAS. 

litionists war a commin' in ; an' that the Emigrant 
Aid Society Company & Co. war pitchin' in ; an' 
they 'd better too. You see they took the boys 
over, an' they got plenty liquor, an' plenty to eat, 
an' they got over free ferry. Lots an' slivers on 
'em went. A lieap o' respectable folks went with 
them. There 's Dr. Tibbs, lives over in Platte, 
he used to go, an' you see they 'lected him. The 
boys tole me one time when they come back — 
says they ' We 've 'lected Dr. Tibbs to the legis- 
lature ; ' an' says I ' Is it the state or the terri- 
tory ? ' An' says they ' The territory.' Says I, 
' Boys, ain't this a puttin' it on too thick ? It 's a 
darned sight too mean enough to go over there 
and vote for them fellers, but to put in a man 
who don't live there is all -fired outrageous.' 
There 's my own nephew — he come all the way 
up from Howard County to vote. He come over 
to see me an' our folks as he went along, I says 
to him — says I, ' Jim Thorpe, hain't you nothin' 
better to do than to come way up to vote in the ter- 
ritory? ' Well he tole me that they want buisy 
at home, an' that they got a dollar a day an' 
liquor ; an' says I, ' Stop, Jim Thorpe, that 's 
enough ; you can't stay here in my house to-night 
an' nobody can that goes for votin' in the terri- 
tory. I tell you what, boy, I 've always been 
down on that kind o' thing. I ain't no abolition- 
ist neither. I tell you I 'm pro-slave. I 'm dyed 
in the wool an' can't make a free-soiler ; but mind 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 49 

what I say, if the boys keep a cuttin' up so I '11 
come over to the territory an' 'nitiate Betsey.' " 

The events of March 30th disturbed free-state 
settlers profoundly, and well they might. Dr. 
Robinson wrote A. A. Lawrence April 4th — 
" the election is awful, and will no doubt be set 
aside. So says the governor, although his life is 
threatened if he does n't comply with the Missou- 
rians' demands. I with others shall act as his 
body-guard." 

But there was no general movement of protest 
against the irregularities of the election. From 
six only of the eighteen election districts did 
remonstrances appear. This was a negligence that 
the "Democratic Review" energetically rebuked. 
" What did the Free-Soilers do ? Did they pro- 
test ? Did they deny the legality of the votes ? 
Not a bit. . . . There was an admirable chance 
for Free-Soilers to prove how much they loved or- 
der, law, and regulated freedom. It could hardly 
be supposed that they would miss so fine a chance 
to immortalize their law-abiding tendencies. But 
really and truly they let it slip. They were drowsy 
over it. Jupiter nodded." 

There was some excuse. It lay in the isolation 
of the little towns, in difficulties of communica- 
tion necessary to concerted action, and in the haz- 
ard that attended the business. One man who 
was active in pushing a protest got into trouble. 
William Phillips, a Leavenworth lawyer, promi- 
4 



50 KANSAS. 

nent in an effort to have the election canceled, 
because, among other things, " the New Lucy, a 
boat, on the morning of the day of election started 
for Leavenworth from Weston with citizens of 
Missouri," who " did vote at the polls of the six- 
teenth district, and then immediately returned 
on said boat to Missouri," was brutally mobbed. 
As a sequel to tar and feathers, head - shaving, 
and riding on a rail, a negro sold the unfortunate 
lawyer at auction — " How much, gentlemen, for 
a full-blooded abolitionist, dyed in de wool, tar 
and feathers and all ? How much, gentlemen ? 
He '11 go at the first bid." This wretched out- 
rage, if we may believe the "Kansas Herald," 
published at Leavenworth, sent a thrill of delight 
through the community. 

Rumors that Governor Reeder designed to set 
aside the entire election, or at least to refuse cer- 
tificates to a large number of candidates whom the 
judges of elections had declared elected, blasted 
whatever personal popularity he might still retain 
among the Missourians. The alienation which 
began with the reception festivities at Fort Leav- 
enworth had constantly widened and deepened. 
Now, in the waxing bitterness, pro-slavery men 
freely coupled threats with denunciations. Some 
talked of " hemping " the scoundrel, while others 
felt more like "cutting his throat from ear to 
ear." 

On the 5th of April Governor Reeder heard 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREflGNTY. 51 

protests and canvassed returns. Beweaponed gen- 
try representing both factions thronged the exec- 
utive office. Free -state men, with their slender 
list of remonstrances, insisted that the election 
should be canceled, and another ordered under 
precautions which would make a second 30th 
of March impossible. Charges of illegal voting 
they themselves did not entirely escape, arising 
mainly from the circumstance that a party of 
Eastern immigrants reached Lawrence on the day 
of election, some of whom, it was alleged, voted 
notwithstanding the brevity of their residence in 
Kansas. A few of the new-comers, alarmed by 
the threatening aspect of affairs, immediately 
fled the territory. It is uncertain whether any of 
these fugitives went to the polls or not. Yet it 
is beyond reasonable doubt that the number of 
anti-slavery ballots cast by men, against whom 
charges of non-residence could be sustained, was 
very small. In the shifting, prospecting, to-and- 
fro situation considerable laxity of suffrage could 
not be escaped. But neither the Emigrant Aid 
Company nor any like Northern society ever com- 
mitted the stupid blunder of sending pseudo-set- 
tlers half across the continent simply to vote. 
The pro-slavery representatives, however, did not 
find illegal voting a congenial theme. They ac- 
centuated the point that the governor could not 
lawfully go behind the returns — that it oxdj re- 
mained for him to authenticate them. 



62 KANSAS. 

Governor Reeder adopted an intermediate, half- 
way policy, whicli failed to satisfy anybody. 
Stickling unhappily for technicalities, he cast out 
the mote of eight candidates against whom pro- 
tests had been filed, and ordered new elections in 
their districts, but ignored the beam of a great 
systematic, wholesale fraud. Of the thirty- one 
members of the legislature twenty -eight were 
satisfactory to the pro-slavery managers. But 
they loudly resented the governor's interference, 
and their curses were almost as violent as might 
have been expected had it been less ineffectual. 
The little company of free-state men who went 
down from Lawrence to Shawnee Mission to act 
as Reeder's body-guard wished they had allowed 
him to take care of himself. Dr. Robinson an- 
nounced that for his part he repudiated both 
governor and legislature — a declaration prophetic 
of future free-state movements. 

Reeder soon afterwards visited Washington, 
where his reputation needed attention. President 
Pierce and Jefferson Davis, secretary of war, dis- 
liked the situation in Kansas, the responsibility 
for which they charged principally upon the gov- 
ernor. Missourians posted to the capital, grew 
red in the face denouncing him, and would listen 
to nothing less than his removal. The president 
intimated that his resignation would be accepta- 
ble, and should not fail of suitable reward. INIight 
not the mission to China have attractions for him ? 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 53 

The negotiations failed. Reeder finally declined 
to present himself as a burnt-offering to the ad- 
ministration and returned to Kansas. 

July 2, 1855, the first territorial legislature as- 
sembled at Pawnee, a town of the smallest real- 
ized attainments, situated inland on the Kansas 
River about one hundred and forty miles from its 
mouth. Preparations to accommodate the law- 
makers were of a scanty and primitive character. 
Rev. Thomas Johnson, long time missionary to 
the Indians at Shawnee Mission Manual Labor 
School and president of the council, states that 
" nearly all the members of the legislature had 
to camp out in the open sun, and do their own 
cooking without a shade tree to protect them ; 
for there were no boarding-houses in the neigh- 
borhood excepting two unfinished shanties." The 
gentry came prepared for roughing it, as they 
brought an unprecedented assortment of legislato- 
rial fixtures — pots, kettles, sauce-pans, provisions, 
and tents. 

The supplementary elections ordered by the 
governor and held May 2 2d, since the pro-slavery 
party did not contest them, resulted in a complete 
free-state victor3^ At the outset, therefore, the 
legislature contained twenty-eight pro-slavery and 
eleven anti-slavery members. As a preliminary 
move in the policy of repudiation, strong pressure 
was brought to bear upon the latter to prevent 
them from taking their seats. These efforts were 



64 KANSAS. 

unsuccessful, except in the case of Martin F. 
Conway, who was finally induced, after a good 
deal of reluctance and hesitation, mainly through 
the insistent if not imperative urgency of Dr. 
Robinson and Colonel Kersey Coates, of Kansas 
City, to send in his resignation to the governor as 
member of the council. Mr. Conway's highly- 
charged phrases and defiant sentiments show no 
trace of the dubious, irresolute state of mind that 
preceded his discussions with Robinson and Coates. 
" Instead of recognizing this as the legislature 
of Kansas," he wrote June 30th, 1855, " and par- 
ticipating in its proceedings as such, I utterly re- 
pudiate it, and repudiate it as derogatory to the 
respectability of popular government and insult- 
ing to the virtue and intelligence of the age. . . . 
I am so unfortunate as to have been trained to 
some crude notions of human rights — some such 
notions as those for which, in ages past, our fool- 
ish ancestry periled their lives on revolutionary 
fields. . . . Simply as a citizen and a man I shall, 
therefore, yield no submission to this alien legis- 
lature. On the contrary, I am ready to set its as- 
sumed authority at defiance, and shall be prompt 
to spurn and trample under my feet its insolent 
enactments whenever they conflict with my rights 
or inclinations." 

To the homespun, brown-fisted, doing-its-own 
work legislature at Pawnee Governor Reeder ad- 
dressed a sonorous and courtly message. He ex- 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 56 

liorted the statesmen there convened " to lay aside 
all selfish and equivocal motives, to discard all un- 
worthy ends, and in the spirit of justice and char- 
ity to each other, with pure hearts, tempered feel- 
ings, and sober judgments," to enter upon their 
duties. 

The legislature, as soon as an organization had 
been effected, gave attention to the ten remaining 
anti-slavery members. Nine were summarily un- 
seated and their places filled by the men to whom 
Governor Reeder denied certificates. A solitary 
Free-Soiler — S. D. Houston — kept his place un- 
til July 22d, when he retired, as "to retain a seat 
in such circumstances would be ... a condescen- 
sion too inglorious for the spirit of an American 
freeman," and left the legislature un vexed by po- 
litical heresy or schism. 

At Pawnee the legislature attempted little ex- 
cept the expulsion of obnoxious members. After 
a session of only four days — reports that cholera 
had appeared in the neighborhood materially con- 
tributing to the discontent — there was an adjourn- 
ment to Shawnee Mission, where it reassembled 
July 16th. 

It was this adjournment whicli led Governor 
Reeder to break with the legislature. Though 
the members of it had been elected by notorious 
invasions from Missouri, that scarlet political of- 
fense could be absolved ; he could still hope that 
they would escape all unworthy conduct, " save 



56 KANSAS. 

that which springs from the inevitable fallibility of 
just and iipiight men ; " but when, in the phrase of 
Toombs of Georgia, " they removed from Reeder's 
town to somebody else's town," then was there 
committed a monstrous and unforgivable sin. To 
be in the wrong place destroyed the constitu- 
tionality of the legislature. The circumstance 
that Governor Reeder was financially interested 
in the success of Pawnee, which the action of the 
legislature ruined, furnished his enemies with a 
convenient text for abusive discourse. Yet the 
more probable explanation of the matter is that, 
repenting of his blunder in failing to set aside the 
March election, he took advantage of the adjourn- 
ment, which was at the expense of some techni- 
calities, as the most plausible excuse at hand for 
parting company with the legislature. 

Nothing in the work of the legislature at Shaw- 
nee Mission has any flavor of originality — unless 
the slave-code be excepted. A natural instinct 
led it to transfer to Kansas almost in bulk the 
statutes of Missouri. That was in harmony with 
Atchison's frank confession — "I and my friends 
wish to make Kansas in all respects like Mis- 
souri." The pro-slavery managers steeped their 
slave-code in despotism. Uncertain of the future, 
confronted by vague, indefinite perils — perils 
which, like clouds on the horizon no bigger than 
a man's hand, might dissolve or blacken the heav- 
ens with storm — they went nervously to work and 



LESSONS IN POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 57 

ran into absurd extremes of precaution and strin- 
gency. In their code two years of imprisonment 
would expiate the crime of kidnapping and selling 
into bondage a free colored man, but death was 
denounced against him who aided in the escape of 
a slave. To question the right of slave-holding 
in Kansas might draw upon the querist's head 
pains of felony. A citizen could be disfranchised 
should he decline taking oath to support the Fu- 
gitive Slave Law — thus impertinently enlarging 
the area of penalty in a federal enactment. The 
statesmen at Shawnee Mission succeeded in mak- 
ing " the enunciation of the great and eternal 
principles of liberty a penitentiary offense." 
Their code struck at the liberty of the press, at 
freedom of speech, and the sanctities of the ballot- 
box. And not the least singular feature of this 
extraordinary legislation is that according to the 
official publication of 1855 the territorial gov- 
ernor had no power to pardon offenses against 
it. In the act of Congress organizing the ter- 
ritory of Kansas it was provided, that the gov- 
ernor " may grant pardons and respites for of- 
fenses against the laws of said territory, and re- 
prieves for offenses against the laws of the United 
States until the decision of the president can be 
known thereon." In " The Statutes of the Terri- 
tory of Kansas," printed at Shawnee Mission in 
1855, tlie cono-ressional act of organization is re- 
published, and from design or accident the clause 
is made to read — the governor " may grant par- 



58 KANSAS. 

dons and respites for offenses against the laws of 
the United States, until the decision of the pres- 
ident can be known thereon." Free-state men 
charged that the mutilation was intentional, and 
one of their first measures on getting possession 
of the legislature was to order the publication of 
a correct copy of the organic act. 

The legislature and its allies successfully prose- 
cuted their quarrel with Governor Reeder, who re- 
ceived notice of his removal from office August 
15th. In the fight they had effective aid from 
the territorial supreme court, which decided the 
removal of the capital to be constitutional. The 
grievances, which did duty in public as the cause 
of Reeder's removal, were charges of delay in 
reaching the territory and in getting the govern- 
ment under way, of usurpation, lack of sympathy 
with the people, and land-speculation ; but the real 
difficulty was that he did not submit tamely and 
obediently to pro-slavery dictation. 

Governor Reeder's administration ran its 
troubled course in less than a year. It achieved 
no very signal success. That were perhaps im- 
possible in the condition of the territory — hope- 
less as a child's freak to stamp out a spring bub- 
bling up under stones. Unquestionably it was 
beyond the reach of a man, without preeminent 
endowments of insight, adaptation, or executive 
force — a stranger to border life, suddenly thrust 
into the wilderness with a commission to smother 
outbreaks of the irrepressible conflict. 



CHAPTER V. 

COUNTER-MOVES. 

MissOURlANS felicitated themselves upon the 
state of affairs in Kansas, upon a legislature unan- 
imously, fanatically pro-slavery, upon a judiciary 
not at all unfriendly, upon an executive depart- 
ment purged of an obnoxious incumbent. Free- 
state men certainly found themselves confronted 
by a very grave question — what course shall be 
pursued in the emergency? Few and beggarly 
were the signs of promise visible for them. Their 
cause seemed to have foundered. Something 
should be done, but what ? 

The line of policy adopted — repudiation of 
the territorial legislature as an illegal, usurping, 
" bogus " concern, and organization forthwith of a 
state government and application to Congress for 
admission to the Union — emanated from Robinson. 
This scheme, an outgrowth and suggestion in part 
of the California struggle, began to shape itself in 
his thoughts on the very day that Reeder handed 
over the territorial legislature to the Philistines. 
The rise of a state government, independent of 
the territorial government, severing all friendly 



60 KANSAS. 

relations with it and aiming to effect its overthrow 
— like the emergence in the Roman world of a 
standing army of twenty-five legions from the 
ruins of the republic — was an event of capital 
importance in Kansas history. 

A preliminary step in the counter-move against 
Missouri was to secure a supply of Sharpe's 
rifles. The reputed " military colonies " were 
practically without weapons. Robinson lost no 
time in dispatching G. W. Deitzler to New Eng- 
land for arms, ostensibly to protect the polls at 
the special elections May 22d, but really as the 
first stroke in the projected scheme of anti-Mis- 
souri operations. Sharpens rifles, he saw, were an 
absolutely essential preliminary. They would en- 
sure the settlers respect and consideration which 
they might not otherwise receive. One hundred 
of these weapons soon reached Lawrence in pack- 
ages marked " books " — a species of literature that 
created wide interest on the border. " Sharpe's 
rifles," said the " Democratic Review," are " the 
religious tracts of the new Free-Soil system." 

Then it would be necessary to establish in place 
of the disowned territorial government some polit- 
ical organization to serve as a rallying point for 
the people until the legislature could be captured 
or admission to the Union secured. To provide 
for this emergency a state government was de- 
cided upon, which would be put into actual ser- 
vice whenever Congress should authenticate it. In 



CO UNTER-MO VES. 61 

the interval tlie anti-slavery portion of the com- 
munity proposed to do without laws as best it 
might. November 1st, 1855, Dr. Robinson wrote 
A. A. Lawrence, reviewing somewhat in detail the 
progress of events up to that time. " [We must 
be] as independent and self-reliant and confident," 
he said, " as the Missourians are, and never in any 
instance be cowed into silence or subserviency to 
their dictation. This course on the part of prom- 
inent free-state men is absolutely necessary to in- 
spire the masses with confidence and keep them 
from going over to the enemy. ... I have been 
censured for the defiant tone of my Fourth of July 
speech, but I was fully convinced that such a 
course was demanded. The legislature was about 
sitting and free-state men were about despairing. 
. . . [A few of us] dared to take a position in 
defiance of the legislature and meet the conse- 
quences. We were convinced that our success 
depended upon this measure, and the demonstra- 
tion of the Fourth was to set the ball in motion 
in connection with Conway's letter to Governor 
Reeder resigning his seat and repudiating the 
legislature. For a while we had to contend with 
opposition from the faint-hearted, but by perse- 
vering in our course, by introducing resolutions 
into conventions and canvassing the territory, re- 
pudiation became universal with free-state men. 
. . . We conceived it important to disown the leg- 
islature, if at all, before we knew the character of 



62 KANSAS. 

its laws, believing they would be such as to crush 
us out if recognized as valid, and believing we 
should stand on stronger ground if we came out 
in advance, . . . The 1st of July forms an im- 
portant epoch in our history. It was about that 
time that open defiance was shown our enemies. 
. . . Pro-slavery bullies were daily in the streets 
and insulted all free-state men whom they sup- 
posed would make no resistance. This drove our 
people into a secret organization of self-defense, 
and it was not long before they were glad to cry 
for quarters. A free-state Missourian, a regular 
California bully, came among us and took them in 
their own way and frightened every pro-slavery 
man from the field. His name is David Evans, 
and if I had a Sharpe's rifle at my disposal I 
should make him a present of it. . . . To divide 
into parties before our admission into the Union 
would be ruinous and give our enemies the advan- 
tage." 

Between the 8th of June and the 15th of Aug- 
ust, 1855, not including the large Fourth of July 
meeting already mentioned, when Dr. Robinson 
delivered an address on local and national issues, 
seven so-called political conventions were held in 
Lawrence. These conventions — one or two of 
the first being small, impromptu affairs — were 
all except one in opposition to the federal ad- 
ministration and its territorial policy. On the 
evening of June 27th a few Democrats assembled 



CO UNTER-MO VES. 6 3 

and resolved that " the best interests of Kansas re- 
quire an early organization of the Democratic 
party." The master spirit in this convention was 
James H. Lane, recently from Indiana, where he 
had obtained some notoriety. He participated in 
the Mexican war, was elected lieutenant-governor 
of Indiana in 1848, and appeared in Congress as 
representative from that state in 1852. For some 
cause Lane's political fortunes did not thrive in 
Indiana, and in the spring of 1855 he betook him- 
self to the fresh fields of Kansas, pro-slavery in 
sentiment, boasting that he would as readily buy 
a negro as a mule, conceding the legality of the 
territorial legislature, and accepting it as a fore- 
gone conclusion that Kansas would become a slave 
state if its soil should prove to be adapted to ser- 
vile labor. But the Democratic venture came to 
nothing. It touched no responsive chord among 
the people. Lane's interest in feeble minority 
parties was very slight, and he soon found his way 
to the opposition benches. 

The various minor assemblies at Lawrence led 
up to a more pretentious convention which be- 
gan on the 14th of August, and continued until 
the following day. The special significance of 
this convention lies in the fact, that it initiated 
rneasures looking toward the formal organization 
of a political party. It declined to attempt that 
task itself as being too local and unrepresentative 
in its make-up, and confided it to a more compre- 



64 KANSAS. 

hensive assembly that should meet October 5th at 
Big Springs, for the purpose of "constructing a 
national platform upon which all friends of mak- 
ing Kansas a free state may act in concert." 

Big Springs in the autumn of 1855 was a place 
of four or five shake-cabins and log-huts. To that 
town repaired one hundred delegates and thrice as 
many spectators, who took quarters out of doors 
on the prairie. At this convention all the anti- 
Missouri elements — heretofore unassociated and 
without definite concert of action — got into a 
kind of organic connection and denominated them- 
selves the Free-State party. 

The platform put forth by the new political 
clanship emphatically confirmed the declaration of 
" The Liberator," that no abolitionists had taken 
passage for Kansas. As a matter of fact, Dr. Rob- 
inson was at that time almost the only free-state 
man of prominence in the territory who avowed 
himself an abolitionist, and he did not happen to 
be a member of the convention. And it is a sig- 
nificant fact, which forcibly illustrates the absence 
of any general and radical sentiment of abolition- 
ism in Kansas, that so late as the year 1858 Mis- 
sourians hired out slaves at Lawrence, received 
their wages, and nobody made objection. 

Though recently escaped from the stranded 
Democratic movement, Lane intrigued himself 
into the chairmanship of a committee of thirteen to 
which the construction of a platform was intrusted. 



COUNTER-MOVES. 65 

The question of slavery brought on an all-night 
discussion, in which he persuaded the committee 
to adopt violent anti-negro principles. Only one 
among the thirteen stood out to the end, — an in- 
expugnable home missionary, James H. Byrd. 
The platform branded the charges of abolitionism, 
so industriously circulated against free-state men, 
as " stale and ridiculous." With that mischievous 
and deplorable fanaticism it disavowed all sym- 
pathy. " The best interests of Kansas require a 
population of white men." When the time came 
for the establishment of a state government, ne- 
groes of every stripe, bond and free, should be 
excluded. The convention adopted the platform 
without dissent. At Big Springs assuredly the 
anti-slaveryism was of a diluted milk-and-water 
type. 

The convention appointed a committee to draft 
resolutions in regard to the territorial legislature. 
That assembly the committee treated with pow- 
erful verbal caustics. Such a course might have 
been expected in any case, but the fact that Gov- 
ernor Reader wrote the resolutions made assur- 
ance doubly sure. After his removal from office 
Reeder threw himself heartily and unreservedly 
into the free-state cause. Widely and favorably 
known in Eastern States, where his defense of 
repudiation had great influence in the persuasion 
of a conservative and law-abiding public that 
this revolutionary measure must arise out of in- 
5 



66 KANSAS. 

exorable necessities, he was an accession of pri- 
mary importance. National as well as local con- 
siderations entered into the problem pressing upon 
the new free-state party. Unless the country at 
lai'ge could be wakened ; unless the few hundred 
men at the front could be backed by moral and 
material support from non-slaveholding states, it 
would be folly to risk a contest with Missouri. 
Governor Reeder's chief service lay outside of 
Kansas. No other man in the free-state ranks 
had anything like a national reputation ; no other 
man could then command a hearing so wide or so 
effective. 

Reeder's aggrieved personal experiences tinct- 
ured his resolutions witli a tang of wormwood. 
Five months after fitting out the territorial leg- 
islature with certificates, and couching his com- 
munications to it in the most courtly phrases of 
official etiquette, he describes that body as " the 
monstrous consummation of an act of violence, 
usurpation, and fraud," — "a contemptible and 
hypocritical mockery of republicanism," tramp- 
ling down as with the hoofs of a buffalo the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska bill, libeling the Declaration of In- 
dependence, and staining the country with indeli- 
ble disgrace. Whenever " peaceful remedies sliall 
fail, and forcible resistance shall furnish any rea- 
sonable prospect of success," — then let the now 
shrinking and reluctant hostility be pushed to " a 
bloody issue." The resolutions scourging the leg- 



COUNTER-MOVES. 67 

islature evoked a response quite as rapturous as 
Lane's negrophobia. 

The first and only discord that jangled the har- 
monies at Big Springs occurred when a subject, 
incidental and subordinate to the special purposes 
of the convention, was reached — the question of 
establishing a state government. It was stirring 
the community — an uppermost theme in the pub- 
lic thought — and could not be ignored. The 
special committee, that took it under advisement, 
shrank from pledging the party to the support of 
so novel and venturesome an experiment. They 
pronounced it " untimely and inexpedient." But 
the convention thought differently, and adopted 
approving resolutions. 

As epilogue to the labors of the convention, and 
as prologue to the opening career of the new party, 
there was nomination of a delegate for Congress. 
Only one man received a moment's consideration 
for this honor — Reeder. The presentation of his 
name called out tremendous applause. His speech 
in accepting the candidacy produced a powerful 
impression. " A steady, unflinching pertinacity of 
purpose, never-tiring industry, dogged persever- 
ance, and all the abilities with which God has en- 
dowed" him — such was the service he pledged to 
Kansas. Reeder's speech modulated in its closing 
paragraphs into the belligerent tone of the resolu- 
tions on the legislature — " when other resources 
fail, there still remain to us the steady eye and the 



68 KANSAS. 

strong arm, and we must conquer or mingle the 
bodies of tlie oppressors with those of the op- 
pressed upon the soil which the Declaration of 
Independence no longer protects ! " 

The convention secured unity and concert 
among the detached anti-Missouri elements, which 
merged into a political party as vapor-wreaths 
combine into the larger cloud. But the conven- 
tion unfortunately exposed itself to damaging crit- 
icism. Lane's " black-law " platform and Reeder's 
heated declamation gave the enemy aid and com- 
fort. The unlucky " bloody - issue " phrase was 
worn threadbare in Congress and out of it by the 
incessant service to which administration speak- 
ers put it. Douglas thundered against " the dar- 
ing and defiant revolutionists in Kansas," who 
were plotting " to overthrow by force the whole 
system of laws under which they live." He pro- 
fessed great anxiety lest, through the inefficiency 
of federal processes, the insurgents should escape 
the just penalty of their deeds. This government, 
he remarked, has been " equal to any emergency 
. . . except the power to hang a traitor ! " 

If the formation of a political party was a 
matter of too considerable magnitude for the 
Lawrence convention of August 14th and 15th to 
enter upon, reasons still more cogent and conclu- 
sive existed why it should shrink from initiating 
the movement for a state government. The con- 
vention met primarily and avowedly in the interest 



COUNTER-MOVES. 69 

of a new political organization, and therefore could 
not escape charges of partisanship, whereas it was 
thought particularly desirable that the state gov- 
ernment should have an origin at least techni- 
cally unpartisan. During the progress of the 
first convention a petition was circulated and 
numerously signed, calling a second convention of 
citizens, without regard to political affiliations, 
to consider the state - government pr-oject. No 
sooner had the former body adjourned on the 15th 
than the latter, composed of substantially the 
same membership, assembled. The recent poli- 
ticians now became simply citizens, and made 
brief work of the business before them. The re- 
sources of talk had been pretty much exhausted 
by the first convention, where the discussion took 
wide range and the expenditure of words was less 
than usual. Opposition to the experiment of a 
state organization showed little or no strength. A 
delegate territorial convention, to meet at Topeka 
September 19th, was agreed upon. 

The Topeka convention subjected the straw 
which had been violently threshed at Lawrence 
and Big Springs to a fresh flailing, with no re- 
sults other than attended earlier experiments. A 
constitutional convention seemed feasible, dele- 
gates to which were elected October 9th. They 
received in the aggregate twenty-seven hundred 
and ten votes. On the same day Reeder was 
elected free-state delegate to Congress and re- 



70 KANSAS. 

ceived all the ballots cast — twenty-eight hun- 
dred and forty-nine. The territorial legislature 
had also ordered an election for congressional del- 
egate and selected October 1st as the date. J. W. 
Whitfield received twenty -seven hundred and 
twenty -one votes — only seventeen scattering 
ballots disturbed the unanimity of this election — 
and secured the governor's certificate. Reeder, 
backed bj'' protests from thirty-two voting pre- 
cincts, contested Whitfield's seat, but did not carry 
his point. 

The constitutional convention continued in ses- 
sion at Topeka from October 23d to November 
11th. Lane was elected president, and delivered, 
on taking the chair, a short address that sketched 
in outline the nobler Kansas of the future. Wide 
diversities of antecedents appeared among the 
members of the convention who represented half 
the states of the Union. Though convened for a 
purpose that did not lack much of being revolution- 
ary, it was a decidedly conservative assembly. 
Nineteen of the thirty-four members reported 
themselves democrats, six registered as whigs, 
while independents, free-soilers, republicans, free- 
state men, and nothingarians found representa- 
tives among the remaining nine. The incidental 
debates, which arose during the session on the 
merits of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, showed that 
a majority were friendly to it in spite of all that 
had happened in the territory. 



COUNTER-MOVES. 71 

The convention put together a fairly good patch- 
work constitution, which adopted the boundaries 
of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, prohibited slavery- 
after the 4th of July, 1857, conferred the right 
of suffrage on "white male citizens," and on 
" every civilized male Indian who has adopted the 
habits of the white man," and located the capital 
temporarily at Topeka. Lane still advocated the 
exclusion of negroes, pleading for a free white 
state, and carried the convention with him. Rob- 
inson fought the " black law " iniquity stoutly, 
but could make no head against it. A portion of 
the convention wished to incorporate anti-negro 
discriminations in the constitution, but the whole 
matter was ultimately referred to the people, who 
voted by a majority of nearly three to one that 
colored men should be excluded from the state. 
December 15th the constitution was ratified at 
the polls by seventeen hundred and thirty -one 
affirmative to forty-six negative votes. The elec- 
tion of officers for this tentative, empirical com- 
monwealth took place January 5th, 1856, and re- 
sulted in the choice of Charles Robinson as gov- 
ernor. One interesting and noteworthy result fol- 
lowed — whatever the philosophy of it may be — 
the sudden and final extinction of black-law sen- 
timent in Kansas. Silence fell upon its numerous 
and active champions with the election of an 
abolitionist to the governorship. That event in 
its effect was like some great change of climate 



72 KANSAS. 

which abruptly revolutionizes the life, customs, 
and habits of a people. 

The elections of December 15th and of January 
6th excited no general disturbance. Pro-slavery 
men sneered at them as silly, scarecrow perform- 
ances. At two points only did anything like 
the old time violence break out — Leavenworth 
and Easton. While the election was in progress 
at Leavenworth, on the 15th of December, a 
gang of pro-slavery roughs appeared at the polls 
and demanded the ballot-box on the ground that 
the election was illegal. Considering the reply 
unsatisfactory, the leader, followed by the whole 
brawling rout, crashed through the window where 
votes were received, and caused a great panic 
among the judges of election, who did not relish 
that style of suffrage. " I was not right well af- 
terwards," one of them complained. The raiders 
captured the ballot-box and bore it away in 
triumph, reducing consequently the majority in 
favor of the Topeka constitution by several hun- 
dred votes. 

Only a single affray of any importance dis- 
quieted the January election. Li consequence of 
rumors that the Kickapoo rangers — a pro-slav- 
ery military company of bad reputation — were 
planning an attack, the election at Easton did 
not take place until the 17th. A few armed 
free-state men from Leavenworth, led by Captain 
R. P. Brown, were in attendance to lend their 



CO UNTER-M VE8. 73 

friends any assistance that might be necessary. 
At night there was a brief skirmish in which one 
pro-slavery man was killed. Nobody on the free- 
state side received serious injury. " I found a 
shot in my scalp a day or two afterwards," said 
an Easton man, " but I did not know it at the 
time." 

In the morning Brown and his men started for 
Leavenworth, but were intercepted by the Kicka- 
poos, who had been hastily summoned to Easton 
aud were in a rage to avenge the killing of the 
preceding night. Their fury burned especially 
against Brown, whose resolution and activity 
made him very unpopular among the Kickapoos. 
" We 've got him sure," one of them chuckled. 
They carried him back to Easton and confined 
him in a store, while an attempt was being made 
to organize a court for his trial. But some of 
the savages could not brook the delays of the 
rudest, most expeditious judiciary. They dis- 
persed the court and dealt Brown a fatal hatchet- 
stroke on the head. As he was not killed out- 
right, they bestirred themselves to take him home 
— a distance of several miles. It was late in the 
afternoon of one of the bitterest winter days ever 
known in Kansas before they set forth. " I am 
very cold," groaned the dying man, who, iced with 
gore, was flung upon the floor of a farm wagon 
and jolted homeward for hours over the roughly 
frozen roads. " Here 's Brown," the devils blurted 
out as they drove up to the door of his cabin. 



74 KANSAS. 

The state legislature met at Topeka March 4th, 
and Governor Kobinson delivered his message — 
a strong, sensible, cautious paper. With a mix- 
ture of shrewdness, poetry, andHl^athos, the legisla- 
ture after a brief session adjourned to the 4th 
of July. It attempted nothing beyond the pas- 
sage of a few laws, the appointment of a codify- 
ing committee to prepare business for the next 
session, the election of Reeder and Lane as sena- 
tors, and the preparation of a memorial praying 
for admission to the Union under the Topeka con- 
stitution. Neither officers nor laws were regarded 
as having anything more than a conditional, ten- 
tative existence, until favorable and validating 
action could be secured on the part of Congress. 
The governor was careful to say that he " recom- 
mended no course to be taken in opposition to the 
general government or to the territorial govern- 
ment while it shall remain with the sanction of 
Congress. Collision with either is to be avoided." 

Thus far an unbroken prosperity had attended 
the countei'-move against Missouri, but in Wash- 
ington it experienced rough weather. April 7th, 
General Cass presented in the Senate the memo- 
rial of the Topeka legislature, asking that the State 
of Kansas might be admitted to the Union. The 
appearance of the memorial caused a commotion. 
" I find," said Douglas, " that the signatures are 
all in one handwriting. ... I perceive on inspec- 
tion various interlineations and erasures. All 



COUNTER-MOVES. 75 

things are calculated to throw doubt on the genu- 
ineness of the document." Senator Pugh thought 
the memorial appeared " as if some person who 
had it in charge had watched the progress of dis- 
cussion in this body, and had stricken out prop- 
ositions to accommodate it to the present stage 
of discussion." " Are we not aware," sneered 
Benjamin, of Louisiana, " that the men whose 
signatures purport to be attached to this paper 
are fugitives from justice ? " The memorial was 
ignominiously bundled out of the Senate. " I ask 
leave to withdraw it," said Cass, "with a view to 
return it to the gentleman who handed it to me." 

The gentleman in question was Lane, who, in no 
wise abashed, immediately began to plan a second 
effort for recognition. He resorted to the sanc- 
tities of an affidavit which rehearsed the alleged 
history of the memorial. It was originally the 
work of a special committee, was accepted by the 
legislature, and then sent back for revision as the 
phraseology needed mending. The committee 
delegated the editorial function to Lane, who 
attended to it after his arrival in Washington. 
The " sets of signatures," executed by members of 
the legislature, having been " unfortunately mis- 
laid," Lane's private secretary came to the rescue 
and signed the names of these gentlemen to the 
memorial — such was the substance of the affi- 
davit. 

Harlan, of Iowa, presented the memorial with 



70 KANSAS. 

the explanatory affidavit to the Senate, but the 
second reception of it was no more friendly than 
the first. The shabby, deleted, interpolary con- 
dition of the document, and the absence of orig- 
inal signatures, neutralized the force of all ex- 
planation however adroit and plausible. 

Besides, the memorial was silent in reference 
to the "black law" restrictions, which, though 
not literally a part of the constitution, would 
practically have the same effect as if they had 
been incorporated in it — an omission readily 
lending color to charges of concealment and dis- 
ingenuousness. The infelicities of the memorial 
afforded Senator Douglas opportunities for as- 
sailing Lane, which he improved to the utmost. 
You presented to us, he said in substance, an orig- 
inal document that had no signatures, no mode of 
authentication, and no date. You attempted to 
palm upon the Senate an imperfect copy of the 
constitution of the so-called State of Kansas. You 
suppressed a material provision of that supreme 
law. You withheld what you dare not defend — 
the permanent legislative instructions excluding 
colored men from the state. In every line of your 
expurgated and recast memorial evidences of fraud 
appear ! 

Lane did not relish the affair, and demanded 
from Douglas an explanation such as " will remove 
all imputation upon the integrity of my acts or 
motives in connection with the memorial," and 



CO UNTER-MO VES. 77 

intimated that a challenge would follow in case 
his explanation should be inadequate. Douglas 
replied that no exculpatory facts were within his 
knowledge, and there the episode ended. 

At the close of a long discussion the House of 
Representatives voted by a majority of two in 
favor of the admission of Kansas to the Union 
with the Topeka constitution, but the hostility of 
the Senate could not be surmounted. 

The Topeka movement could show but little 
backing of precedents. State governments had 
repeatedly come into existence without enabling 
acts, but never before in defiance of the territo- 
rial authorities. That was the situation in Kan- 
sas. Bayard, of Delaware, pi'onounced the con- 
duct of the free-state party " incipient treason." 
But if their action touched, it did not cross, the 
line of treason. Had there been an appeal to 
force treason would have been committed. If 
the people of Kansas chose to supplement me- 
morials to Congress with a state constitution un- 
der which officers had been provisionally elected 
and laws provisionally passed — all a dead organ- 
ism until federal inspiration should breathe into 
it the breath of life — they were only exercising 
the primal rights of American citizens. 

The Topeka government taking the field against 
the Missouri legislature — a veritable, though hy- 
pothetical Kansas institution warring upon an in- 
terloper — was erected, as has been already re- 



78 KANSAS. 

marked, with a view to national, as well as domes- 
tic uses. It was an emphatic method of publishing 
the territorial assembly as hopelessly, intolerably 
bad, and in this way it made an effective appeal to 
Northern sympathy. Locally it afforded a rallying 
point for the anti-slavery party, and presented at 
least a show of aggressive activity which bespoke 
nerve and vigor in the leadership. The legisla- 
ture never passed any laws of importance, and 
never put in force those which it did pass. It 
was a disguised mass-meeting — a mass-meeting 
shrewdly and effectively masquerading as a state 
government. Whatever savage declarations and 
threats it may have uttered, it took care to do 
nothing illegal. The crafty scheme drew the pro- 
slavery fire and held the free-state men together 
until they could get possession of the legitimate 
legislature. 



CHAPTER VI. 

"WAR ON THE WAKAHUSA. 

Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, the second gov- 
ernor of Kansas, was a lawyer of good repute, 
with an honorable record as governor of his native 
state, minister to Mexico, and representative in 
Congress, genial, companionable, his sympathies 
and instincts naturally gravitating toward what- 
ever is just and honorable, a tenacious, unwaver- 
ing Democrat of the old school, but no iron, deci- 
sive storm-queller able to rule the anarchy let 
loose in the territory. 

The period immediately preceding and the pe- 
riod immediately following Shannon's advent were 
not prolific in violence. The political fight — the 
fence of hostile constitutional expedients, a hy- 
pothetical state government matched against a 
legitimatized territorial legislature — got well un-' 
der way. 

Now and then the underlying ferment broke 
out into spasmodic acts of personal violence. The 
fortunes of Rev. Pardee Butler are among the 
most notable experiences of discomfort during 
this interval. The divine so far forgot all max- 



80 KANSAS. 

ims of policy as to avow free-soil opinions in the 
pro-slavery town of Atchison. " I intend," said 
he, " to utter my sentiments where I please." A 
local bully had recently fallen upon an estrayed 
abolitionist who ventured into the region, and 
had soundly thrashed him. Public sentiment ap- 
plauded the act, and, as it seemed to merit special 
recognition, a paper was drawn up gratefully re- 
counting the bully's devotion to public interests, 
the signing of which became a test of political or- 
thodoxy. A bright thought struck the junior ed- 
itor of the ''Squatter Sovereign," a rabid, pro- 
slavery newspaper published in town. It occurred 
to him that this paper might be useful in taming 
the doughty free-soiler, and he presented it to him 
for his signature, which, of course, was not se- 
cured. A mob of considerable size, understand- 
ing the game, and gathered in anticipation of the 
parson's probable decision, then took him in hand 
and hurried him toward the Missouri River, ap- 
parently with the purpose of tossing him into it. 
After reaching the bank his face was blackened. 
Then followed a long discussion — the divine be- 
ing a " target at which were hurled imprecations, 
curses, arguments, entreaties, accusations, and in- 
terrogatories." It was suggested that the ends of 
justice would be sufficiently served if he should 
immediately and permanently quit the country. 
These Atchison fanatics offered to point out the 
very tree on which he would be gibbeted in case 



WAR ON THE WAKARUSA. 81 

of return, if he felt their discourse needed the 
illumination of an object-lesson. He stiffly re- 
plied that he should certainly return, provided 
his life were not taken and Providence permitted. 
The conservators of public peace relented so far 
as to consent to his remaining in the vicinity 
with the understanding that he should keep his 
mouth shut. " I shall speak as I choose," said 
the incorrigible parson ; " I have done no wrong. 
I have as good a right to come here as you. I 
am but one man, you are many. Dispose of me 
as you think best. I ask no favors of you." 

The discussion accomplished nothing in the 
way of compromise. The mob finally came to a 
vote on the question — what sort of public honors 
shall be conferred on the divine? and a majority 
gave their suffrages in favor of hanging — a ver- 
dict that undoubtedly would have been executed, 
had not the teller tampered with the returns in 
the interest of humanity and misreported the re- 
sult. A milder sentence took effect. Extempo- 
rizing a raft out of cottonwood logs, and placing 
upon it the clergyman and his baggage — the 
whole tricked out with derisive placards — the 
gang thrust the strange craffc out into the stream 
for a down-the-river voyage. After floating five 
or six miles, escorted a part of the distance by cit- 
izens of the town who followed along the banks, 
the traveler made land and escaped. 

This outrage, which happened August IGth, 
6 



82 KANSAS. 

was afterwards reenacted with variations. The 
Rev. Mr. Butler, undeterred by past experiences, 
visited Atchison again some months subsequent 
to his voyage on the Missouri, and fell into the 
clutches of a company just arrived from South 
Carolina, who were determined to put him out of 
the way. It was with the greatest difl&culty that 
the South Carolinians could be prevailed upon to 
scale down the penalty from capital punishment 
to a coat of tar and feathers. They finally yielded, 
and the coat of tar and feathers was administered. 
An elaborate pro -slavery reception awaited 
Governor Shannon on his arrival at Shawnee 
Mission September 3d. There was a speech by 
an orator, unsurpassed and unsurpassable in high- 
flying sentiment, who welcomed him to a land 
where "the gentle pressure of the hand attests 
the cordial welcome of the heart ; " where no 
Catilines abound, " no lank and hungry Italians 
with their treacherous smiles, no cowards with 
their stilettos, no assassins of reputations." In 
this recovered Eden " the morning prayer is 
heard on every hill, the evening orison is chanted 
in every valley and glen." Doubtless the gov- 
ernor was glad to learn that rogues were scarce in 
Kansas, and that the squatters had such a pen- 
chant for praying. He was in accord with the 
optimism of the hour. Reported disturbances, like 
the misfortunes of Rev. Pardee Butler two weeks 
before, he believed to have been grossly exagger- 



WAR ON THE WAKARUSA. 83 

ated for partisan purposes. " There is no state in 
the Union where persons and property are more 
secure than in this territory." Whatever irregu- 
larities may have attended the election of the 
legislature, he contended that it has been duly 
recognized by the territorial executive and the 
president of the United States, and that its laws 
must be enforced. " I come amongst you," the 
governor said, " not as a mere adventurer to bet- 
ter his fortune and then return home, but as one 
desiring for himself and family a permanent loca- 
tion." 

Governor Shannon fell into an unfortunate er- 
ror at the beginning of his administration — an 
error which he subsequently strove to correct — 
in openly and exclusively affiliating with the Mis- 
souri party. He found that faction in complete 
possession of the government. Daniel Woodson, 
secretary of state, who acted as governor in the 
interval between Reeder's removal and Shannon's 
arrival, who signed the notorious laws of the first 
legislature — a manageable sort of man, easily 
steered into any port — was in favor with the 
pro-slavery party. They were indignant because 
President Pierce did not promote him to the gov- 
ernorship. For a time Shannon wholly resigned 
himself to Missouri influence and policy. He 
unwisely consented to preside at a convention of 
" the lovers of law and order," which assembled 
at Leavenworth November 14th, to formulate and 



84 KANSAS. 

publish to the world both their principles and their 
grievances. The conduct of " certain persons pro- 
fessing to be friends of human freedom " was de- 
nounced as " practical nullification, rebellion, and 
treason." The Topeka constitutional conven- 
tion " would have been a farce if its purposes had 
not been treasonable." Any instrument which 
the Topeka government may present to Congress 
'' ought to be scouted from its halls as an insult to 
its intelligence and an outrage upon our sovereign 
rights." Governor Shannon made a speech which 
was received with vociferous enthusiasm. " The 
president is behind you," he shouted ; " the pres- 
ident is behind you." The convention, follow- 
ing the example of the meeting at Big Springs, 
formed a political party which was called the 
" law and order " party, and was expected to 
gather up all the pro-slavery elements of the ter- 
ritory. The 14th of November, said " The Kan- 
sas Herald " on the 17th, " will be a day long 
to be remembered, for the death-knell of the abo- 
lition, nullification, and revolutionary party was 
sounded." 

But this mood of exultation soon passed away, 
and was followed by a sense of disquiet and ap- 
prehension. There began to be suspicions before 
long that no decisive victory had been gained 
when the legislature and the governor were cap- 
tured. Free-state men managed to ignore the 
bulky statutes of Shawnee Mission. They dis- 



WAR ON THE WAKARUSA. 85 

carded all the civil and legal machineries estab- 
lished by the legislature — courts, justices of the 
peace, probate judges, registers of deeds — and 
resorted to some make-shift. In Lawrence, deeds 
were recorded by a private citizen who acted with- 
out authority other than a vague, indefinite public 
consensus. Then these insurgents were consoli- 
dating into the unity of an efficient political or- 
ganization, and that circumstance began to cloud 
the pro-slavery sunshine. Besides, there was the 
audacious Topeka movement, an amateur consti- 
tution drawing upon itself the eyes of the nation, 
rousing intense passions of friendship and hostil- 
ity, and actually pushing through one house of 
Congress. 

The Missouri border became eager to try more 
vigorous and summary measures in the treatment 
of territorial abolitionism than had thus far been 
prescribed, to substitute for the policy of legislat- 
ing the Yankees out, the policy of wiping them 
out. In the indifferent, waning success of those 
milder expedients which culminated at the polls, 
and in the compilation of iron-clad statutes, public 
opinion steadily gravitated toward an aggressive 
root-and-branch policy as infolding larger buds of 
promise. Why not disperse the intruders and 
have a quick end of the foolishness ? Lawrence, 
in particular, as the headquarters of sedition, had 
acquired an evil name that grew blacker with 
every turn of affairs favorable to the free-state 



86 KANSAS. 

cause. There came to be a general conviction 
that nothing less than the destruction of this op- 
probrious town would give peace and safety to the 
border, and naturally enough the passion to ex- 
periment upon it with the bowie-knife and re- 
volver cure rose to an almost uncontrollable pitch. 
Only a pretext was needed to precipitate an at- 
tack, and the flimsiest would be accepted if noth- 
ing better offered. 

A fatal claim-dispute, November 21st, 1855, at 
Hickory Point — a settlement ten miles south of 
Lawrence — furnished the coveted excuse for an 
appeal to arms. F. N. Coleman, a pro-slavery 
squatter, assassinated Charles M. Dow, a young 
neighbor of free-state proclivities, who made his 
home with old Jacob Branson. Dow was " a right 
peaceable man," said Branson ; " a man that I 
thought as much of as any I ever got acquainted 
with." 

Five days after the killing, an excited band of 
armed free-state men congregated about the spot 
crimsoned by Dow's blood to discuss under its 
dark inspiration measures of retribution. The 
assassin and his friends — implicated more or less 
directly in the crime — took alarm at the earliest 
signs of mischief and fled to Shawnee Mission. A 
proposition to fire their deserted cabins was dis- 
cussed and rejected, though the adverse decision 
did not save them from being burnt down at night. 
The talk of the assembly befitted time and occa- 



WAR ON THE WAKARUSA. 87 

sion. It was reminiscent, furious, stygian, avenge- 
ful, but no plans of practical violence were adopted 
beyond the appointment of a vigilance committee, 
with instructions "to ferret out and bring the 
murderers and their accomplices to condign pun- 
ishment." The committee exhibited more zeal 
than marksmanship in the discharge of their du- 
ties if Coleman may be credited, " I was not 
safe in traveling through the territory," he tes- 
tified before the congressional investigating com- 
mittee a few months after the homicide. " I had 
been shot at more than twenty times by men from 
Lawrence." 

Old Branson is described as " an elderly man 
of most quiet and modest deportment," yet, ac- 
cording to the testimony of pro-slavery neighbors, 
whose evidence should be received with abate- 
ments, the butchery of his friend stirred him to 
great fluency of sanguinary talk. They report 
him as swearing mouth-filling oaths that a certain 
Harrison Buckley, who egged on the murder, 
" should not breathe the pure air three minutes," 
if he could once draw a bead upon him. Buckley, 
in real or simulated alarm for his life, procured a 
peace warrant for Branson's arrest, which was put 
into the hands of Samuel J. Jones, lately com- 
missioned sheriff of Douglas County. 

Sheriff Jones, a prominent figure in coming 
events, was a mixture of black and white that 
fairly represented the good and evil of the border 



00 KANSAS. 

— a man of great energy, noise, violence, courage, 
and sincerity. He won his first partisan laurels 
at Bloomington polls on the 30th of March, when 
he succeeded in driving off two or three rather 
mettlesome and plucky election judges. That ex- 
ploit gave him a very odious reputation in free- 
state circles. 

At a late hour on the night of November 26th 
a loud, unceremonious thumping saluted Bran- 
son's cabin door. " Who 's there ? " shouted the 
old man. " Friends," was the reply. So urgent 
was the haste of these friends that they forced 
the door before they could be invited to come in. 
They told Branson to consider himself a prisoner, 
and to be very careful how he behaved. Slight 
indiscretions might lead to unfortunate results. 
Mrs. Branson ventured to inquire of the visitors 
by what authority they were pouncing upon her 
husband at dead of night, when her attention was 
called to a seven-shooter as a warrant singularly 
effective and constitutional. Jones pulled Bran- 
son out of bed, ordered him to put on his coat and 
trousers, mounted him on a sharp-backed mule, 
and set off for Lecompton via Lawrence. 

News of the raid flew swiftly through the 
neighborhood. There was a hurried rally to over- 
haul Jones. On reaching Blanton he found Cap- 
tain J. B. Abbott with fifteen men drawn across 
the road to dispute his passage. " What 's up ? " 
asked the sheriff. " That 's what we want to 



WAR ON THE WAKARUSA. 89 

know," Abbott growled. Pistols, squirrel-guns, 
Sliarpe's rifles, were ready for business in a twink- 
ling. One of Abbott's men, in the absence of 
better armament, provided himself with two large 
stones and proposed to play the part of a cata- 
pult against the enemy. But, notwithstanding 
the warlike aspect of affairs, volleys of words 
were the deadliest missiles exchanged. " Come 
out of that," somebody among the rescuers shouted 
to Branson, and out of it he came. 

Abbott and his men hurried to Lawrence, 
where they arrived early in the morning. They 
halted at Dr. Robinson's house on Mt. Oread. 
"I shall never forget the appearance of the men," 
Mrs. Robinson wrote, " in simple citizen's dress, 
some armed and some unarmed, standing in un- 
broken line, just visible in the breaking light of a 
November morning. The little band of less than 
twenty men had . . . walked ten miles since nine 
o'clock of the previous evening. Mr. Branson, a 
large man, of fine proportions, stood a little for- 
ward of the line, with his head slightlj' bent, 
■which an old straw hat hardly protected from 
the cold, looking as though in his hurry of de- 
parture from home he took whatever came first." 

Now that the rescuers had succeeded in their 
enterprise, they began to fear that it might lead 
to serious consequences, and the visit to Dr. Rob- 
inson was for explanation and advice. S. N. 
Wood, who acted as spokesman, narrated the 



90 KANSAS. 

events of the night. " Now what shall we do ? " 
he asked in conclusion. " I am afraid the affair 
will make mischief," Robinson replied. " The 
other side will seize upon it as a pretext for in- 
vading the territory. Go down to the town and 
cail a meeting at eight o'clock." 

The meeting was called, and after the circum- 
stances of the rescue had been set forth by Wood 
and Branson, Robinson led off in a speech, outlin- 
ing the policy which was subsequently pursued — 
disavowal of all responsibility in the matter, dis- 
patch of the men who were implicated out of to\vn 
without delay, and adoption of a strictly defen- 
sive attitude. Conway, G. P. Lowrey, and others 
followed in the same strain. A committee of 
safety was appointed and clothed with authority 
to take such measures of precaution as the emer- 
gency might require. 

Upon losing his prisoner, Sheriff Jones rode to 
Franklin distraught betwixt conflicting emotions 
of rage and exultation. The success of the Yan- 
kees exasperated him, yet in that success he fore- 
saw a sure dawn of day for the pro-slavery cause 
— foresaw the overthrow of Lawrence and the 
approach of that millennial period when he would 
" corral all the abolitionists and make pets of 
them." 

Jones hastened to send missives from Franklin 
to his friends in Missouri calling for help. It 
soon occurred to him that appeals to Missouri 



WAR ON THE WAKARUSA. 91 

miglit have a queer look, and couriers were sent 
to Governor Shannon with an exaggerated ac- 
count of the troubles. In the judgment of Jones, 
it would require a force of three thousand men 
to deal effectually with the traitors of Douglas 
County and avenge the affronts offered to justice. 
The governor caught the sheriff's outlaw-crush- 
ing furor, and unhesitatingly ordered militia offi- 
cers to collect as large a force as possible- and 
march at once to Lawrence. Nobody, whether 
sheriff, militia general, or governor, thought it 
necessary to communicate with that town, to ask 
explanations or make demands. It was not a 
word and a blow, but a blow without the word. 

Kansas volunteers did not respond in any large 
numbers to the governor's summons. The town 
of Franklin furnished a company led by Captain 
Leak — a commander with unhappy, though not 
disqualifying antecedents. " Mr. Leak," in the 
words of a resident of Franklin, "was a traveling 
gambler — he told me so himself." Other towns 
in the territory furnished contingents, but prob- 
ably the whole number of Kansans did not exceed 
fifty. The great mass of invaders came from Mis- 
souri. They straggled along in detached parties 
toward Lawrence, armed with every variety of 
weapons from rusty flint-locks and old-fashioned 
horse-pistols to modern rifles, until twelve or fif- 
teen hundred of them were concentrated in the 
vicinity — encamping for the most part on the 



92 KANSAS. 

Wakarusa, a small affluent of the Kansas River — 
an unwashed, braggart, volcanic multitude. They 
laid the surrounding country under contribution, 
overhauled travelers, rifled cabins, fired hay-stacks, 
seized horses and cattle — in a word, filled the 
region with confusion as an overture to letting 
slip fiercer dogs of war. 

The militia generals, who responded to Shan- 
non's call with frolicsome alacrity that befitted a 
pleasure jaunt, grew sober on reaching Lawrence. 
It was found that the committee of safety had 
developed an embarrassing amount of defensive 
energy. The chief command they intrusted to 
Dr. Robinson, with the rank of major-general, 
though he had never seen military service. To 
Lane they assigned a second rank. His practical 
war-record would naturally have claimed the first, 
but the committee, in the grave and critical junc- 
ture, did not dare to risk a frothy, pictorial, un- 
ballasted leadership. Five small forts covered the 
approaches to the town, within the lines of which 
some six hundred men — large reinforcements 
having arrived from neighboring villages — drilled 
incessantly. Two hundred of these men were 
armed with Sharpe's rifles — a vexatious circum- 
stance that gave the Missourians pause. A fresh 
installment of them — the first reached Lawrence 
a few weeks after the March election — was re- 
ceived just as hostilities began. " I have onl}^ time 
to thank you and the friends who sent us the 



WAR ON THE WAKARUSA. 93 

Sliarpe's rifles," Dr. Robinson wrote A. A. Law- 
rence December 4th, " for they . . . will give us 
the victory without firing a shot." 

General Eastin, editor of the pro-slavery " Kan- 
sas Herald," reconnoitred Lawrence and advised 
Governor Shannon that " the outlaws were well 
fortified," — that an assault upon them would be 
at heavy cost. He counseled recourse to the fed- 
eral troops at Fort Leavenworth. His communi- 
cation excited alarm at Shawnee Mission. Gov- 
ernor Shannon, who had viewed the whole matter 
as a mere bagatelle, requested permission of the 
authorities at Washington to employ United States 
soldiers in the emergency. He also urged Colonel 
E. V. Sumner, in command at Fort Leavenworth, 
to march for the scene of disturbance without 
awaiting orders. This request Sumner declined 
to comply with, but suggested that the great mob 
enveloping Lawrence should be made to under- 
stand it must confine itself wholly to defensive 
operations — a hint which was promptly acted on. 
The War Department placed the garrison of Fort 
Leavenworth at Shannon's service, but Colonel 
Sumner refused to move until orders reached him 
from Washington. 

If the besiegers outside of the town found them- 
selves harassed by unexpected and increasing dif- 
ficulties, the besieged inside of it were not free 
from perplexities. The influx of reinforcements 
taxed the commissariat very heavily. Whoever 



94 KANSAS. 

possessed supplies of food or clothing found him- 
self uncomfortably circumstanced. The expres- 
sion on the faces of tradesmen as they distributed 
their goods among the soldiery in exchange for 
worthless scrip was like lamplight glimmering on 
the wall of a sepulchre. There was a general 
observance of order and decorum. Most citizens 
made a virtue of necessity and contributed freely 
what otherwise must have been rudely confis- 
cated. In a single instance a little outbreak of 
violence occurred — expending itself in the sack of 
a small tailor's shop. One night during the siege, 
according to the story of a clerk, " about twenty 
men, armed with revolvers," invaded the premises 
and extinguished the lamp by firing a tobacco-box 
at it. " Before I could light a candle," the clerk 
continued, " everytliing in the store was taken off 
the shelves and carried away." A young woman 
who had the misfortune to keep a hotel — the 
Cincinnati House — in Lawrence during the im- 
pecunious era of the siege, wrote a few days after 
its close : " It looked strange ... to see the streets 
paraded from morning till night by men in mili- 
tary array ; to see them toil day and night throw- 
ing up intrenchments ; to see them come in to their 
meals each with his gun in hand and sometimes 
bringing it to the table. . . . How we toiled to 
feed the multitudes, seldom snatching a moment 
to look out upon the strange scenes — often ask- 
ing, ' What are the prospects to-day ? ' — or at 



WAR ON TEE WAKARUSA. 95 

midnight as, worn and weary, we sought the 
pillow, discussing such themes as these ... — 
* There 's prospect of an attacic to-night.' ' The 
guard has been doubled, and we are all vigi- 
lance.'" . . . 

The sobriety of affairs in Lawrence induced the 
committee of safety to open communications with 
Governor Shannon. G. P. Lowrey and C. W. 
Babcock set out at one o'clock on the morning 
of December 6th for Shawnee Mission. Near 
Franklin they encountered a picket - guard, and 
were ordered to advance and give the countersign. 
" We got the cork out of the only countersign we 
had as soon as possible, and that passed us." The 
commissioners soon stumbled upon another batch 
of sentinels. " Where are you going ? " they de- 
manded. " Things are getting dangerous here- 
abouts," said Babcock, " and I 've made up my 
mind to scoot for Illinois." " Abolitionists scared 
in Lawrence, eh? Don't believe we can let you 
pass." After some discussion it was agreed that 
the officer in command, who turned out to be the 
traveling gambler, Captain Leak, should be con- 
sulted. This worthy was reported asleep, but it 
was a sort of sleep which the most energetic shak- 
ing, permitted by a very lax military etiquette, 
could not break, and his valuable advice was in- 
accessible. The commissioners managed to pacify 
the guard and worry through the lines. In gen- 
eral, the Missourians were talkative and expressed 



96 KANSAS. 

their opinions unreservedly. Some of tliem fumed 
over reports that the Lawrence outlaws had sub- 
stituted a red flag for the Stars and Stripes. 
Some gloried in the ruin about to fall on the abo- 
lition stronghold — a ruin that would not leave 
one stone upon another. Others cursed Reeder 
as the author of all the trouble — " We must 
have his head even if we have to go to Pennsylva- 
nia after it." 

Lowrey and Babcock found Governor Shannon 
in ill humor. He roundly denounced free-state 
men — charged them with driving from the ter- 
ritory settlers who were politically obnoxious and 
firing their cabins, and with displaying a startling 
spirit of insubordination and rebellion by their re- 
sistance to territorial officers and their nullifica- 
tion of territorial laws. The delegation from 
Lawrence contended that the governor had been 
deceived ; that Lawrence was no more responsible 
for the rescue of Branson than for the precession 
of the equinoxes ; that the question of territorial 
legislation did not enter into present complica- 
tions, and that he was beating about in heavy fogs 
of ignorance and misapprehension concerning the 
facts out of which they rose. " I shall go to Law- 
rence," said -Shannon, " and insist upon the people 
agreeing to obey the laws and delivering up their 
Sharpe's rifles." " We have not resisted the 
laws," the commissioners retorted. " As to the 
rifles nobody would be safe in going before our 



WAR ON THE WAKARUSA. 97 

people with any proposition to deliver them up. 
If you have such an ideja you had better stay away 
and let the fight go on." 

For the first time suspicions began to haunt 
Shannon that he might have been misled by his 
Missouri advisers. The shrewdness, poise, and 
qviickness to detect an opponent's weak points dis- 
played among the outlaws, whose intelligence he 
had put at a paltry valuation, astonished Shannon. 
They ought to have scattered like a flock of af- 
frighted birds at the first rustle of danger instead 
of digging trenches, learning the manual of arms, 
and discovering an embarrassing skill in diplo- 
macy. 

The governor, on his arrival at the Wakarusa 
camp, found the militia, excited by Avhiskey and 
ignorant of free-state strength, clamoring for per- 
mission to attack the town. He spared no efforts 
to discourage their frenzy. In this movement 
he was heartily and effectively seconded by Atch- 
ison. "But for his mediatorial offices," said 
Butler, of South Carolina, speaking in the Senate 
March 5th, 1856, vaguely and imperfectly com- 
prehending the ugly dilemma in which the over- 
hasty Missourians found themselves, " the homes 
of Lawrence would have been burned and the 
streets drenched with blood." Senator Butler 
thought that these kind offices were very inade- 
quately appreciated. But let the ingrates be- 
ware. " If ever D. R. Atchison shall pass the line 
7 



98 KANSAS. 

again and say as Caesar did, ' I liave passed the 
Rubicon and now I draw the sword,' I should 
dread the contest." 

Shannon visited Lawrence December 7th, in 
company with prominent Missourians, to prose- 
cute negotations for peace. Robinson and Lane 
received the visitors in behalf of the citizens and 
of the committee of safety. The interview com- 
pletely undeceived Shannon. Now the pressing 
question was not how to disperse free-state out- 
laws, but how, without an explosion, to disperse 
the Missourians, whom the governor called " a 
pack of hyenas." To accomplish this he urged the 
representatives of Lawrence to be as generous as 
possible in the matter of concessions. A treaty 
was concluded, astutely designed to bear more 
than one interpretation — a treaty in which con- 
tradictory phrases shouldered and jostled each 
other, but which succeeded amidst the confusion 
in informing the Missourians that the governor 
" has not called upon persons residents of any 
other state to aid in the execution of the laws, 
and such as are here in this territory are here of 
their own choice." 

Governor Shannon called a meeting of the Mis- 
souri commanders at Franklin. They were not 
consulted about the treaty, and knew nothing of 
its tenor. With the exception of Atchison, who 
did not relish the pass to which matters had come 
and dechned to attend, the principal military 



WAR ON THE WAKARITSA. 99 

men were present. Shannon insisted that Rob- 
inson and Lane should accompany him to Frank- 
lin, and assist in sugar-coating the unpalatable 
treaty. The governor led off in a long talk, and 
rehearsed the details of the campaign. Lane fol- 
lowed, but had hardly spoken half-a-dozen sen- 
tences when some arrogance of manner or impol- 
icy of language gave offense, and the sensitive 
gentry began to pick up their hats and revolvers. 
" Wait a minute," Shannon interposed, " and hear 
what Dr. Robinson has to say." Robinson suc- 
ceeded in getting the attention of the restless 
audience, while he expounded the unreason of the 
demand, so popular among Missourians, that free- 
state men should surrender their Sharpe's rifles. 
They had a constitutional right to bear arms. 
You, gentlemen, in your own case, would not for 
an instant tolerate the impertinence of such a 
claim. Further, Lawrence was not a party to 
the assault upon Jones. What is more, Lawrence 
has never resisted the service of a legal writ. " Is 
that so, Mr. Sheriff ? " a militia colonel broke in. 
The sheriff could not deny the statement. " Then 
we have been damnably deceived," said the colonel. 
The inevitable must be accepted, and the baf- 
fled Missourians swore with a lighter accent than 
might have been expected. Sheriff Jones was 
disgusted at the turn of affairs. Hopes of a fu- 
ture opportunity to settle with the abolitionists 
gave him a little comfort. " I '11 get up another 



100 KANSAS. 

scrape," he said, " if I 'm opposed in executing 
the laws. No old granny shall stop me next 
time." 

Atchison did not remit his efforts for peace. 
" The position of General Robinson is impreg- 
nable," he said in a speech to the disgusted in- 
vaders, "not in a military point of view, but his 
tactics have given him all the advantage as to the 
cause of quarrel. If you attack Lawrence now, 
you attack it as a mob, and what would be the 
result ? You would cause the election of an abo- 
lition president and the ruin of the Democratic 
party. Wait a little. You cannot now destroy 
these people without losing more than you would 
gain." 

Saturday, December 8th, the pleasant weather 
— so mild that many soldiers on both sides were 
in summer clothing — suddenly changed into win- 
ter. In the evening a tremendous sleet-storm set 
in and extinguished among the Missourians what- 
ever ardor for fighting may have survived the 
frosty articles of peace. They retired sullenly^ 
carrying three " dead bodies — one killed by the 
falling of a tree, one shot by the guard acciden- 
tally, and one killed in some sort of a quarrel." 
The victory of Lawrence was complete — a blood- 
less victory won by strategy. 

A single voice was raised in solemn and public 
protest against the peace. After the treaty and 
its stipulations had become known ; after speeches 



WAR ON THE WAKARCTSA. 101 

of felicitation on the happy subsidence of perils 
that threatened to engulf the settlement in ruin 
had been made, an unknown man — tall, slender, 
angular ; his face clean-shaved, sombre, strongly 
lined, of Puritan tone and configuration ; his 
blue -gray eyes honest, inexorable; strange, un- 
worldly intensities enveloping him like an atmos- 
phere — mounted a dry-goods box and began to 
denounce the treaty as an attempt to gain by 
foolish, uncomprehending make-shift what could 
be compassed only by the shedding of blood. 
Since that day the name of this unknown man, 
plucked down from the dry-goods box with his 
speech mostly unspoken, has filled the post-horns 
of the world — Old John Brown. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 

The winter of 1855-56 in Kansas was of a 
Siberian character. For a time meteorological 
woes surpassed all others in the territory. The 
sleet-tempest that celebrated the close of the Wa- 
karusa war faithfully foretokened the coming 
months. For the most part the immigrants were 
very inadequately protected against the sudden 
and extreme cold. Log huts — the common type 
of dwelling — had few attractions for winter res- 
idence. Ordinarily they were a sorry affair — a 
floorless pen of half-hewn logs, roughly battened 
with a filling of stones, sticks, and mud — the 
whole loosely roofed over, and usually containing 
a single room. In the absence of anything bet- 
ter, doors and windows were manufactured out of 
cotton cloth. Into these rickety cabins storms 
drifted from every quarter — above, beneath, 
around. 

" I failed to complete my log-house before the 
winter of 1855-56 set in," said Captain Samuel 
Walker. " The sides were up, roofed, and partly 
plastered when the Wakarusa war interrupted 



SOiWE HEAVY BLOWS. 103 

work. On my return home, after the conclusion 
of peace, the cold was so severe that nothing more 
could be done, and we had to shift as best we 
could until warm weather. Our cabin had no 
floor, but we were as well off in this particular 
as most of our neighbors. Chinks and fissures 
abounded in roof and gables, as the green slabs 
with which they were covered warped badly. 
Seven of us made up the family — five children, 
mostly small. At times, when the winds were 
bleakest, we actually went to bed as the only es- 
cape from freezing. More than once we woke in 
the morning to find six inches of snow in the 
cabin. To get up, to make one's toilet under 
such circumstances, was not a very comfortable 
performance. Often we had little to eat — the 
wolf was never very far from our door during that 
hard winter of 1855-56." 

The inhospitalities of Kansas frontier life fell 
with pecu4iar severity upon women. " He who 
has seen the sufferings of men," said Victo Hugo, 
'' has seen nothing. Let him look upon the suf- 
ferings of women." Burdened with drudgeries 
in their most primitive, unrelieved shape, ex- 
posed to all the anxieties and perils which a state 
of anarchy implies, denied the relief of public 
and aggressive service — their heroic, untrum- 
peted endurance was not least heroic and worthy 
among the pioneer services rendered to Kansas. 

Severities of winter, that frost-bit the ill-fur- 



104 KANSAS. 

nished settlers, called a truce to active hostilities. 
Yet warlike movements, that pointed to future in- 
vasions on a more formidable scale than had 
heretofore been attempted, continued along the 
border. " We have reliable information," Robin- 
son wrote A. A. Lawrence January 25th, 1856, 
" that extensive preparations are being made in 
Missouri for the destruction of Lawrence and all 
the free-state settlements. You can have no idea 
of the character of the men with whom we have 
to deal. We are purchasing ammunition and 
stores of all kinds for a siege. . . . We have tele- 
graphed to the president and members of Con- 
gress and the Northern governors our condition, 
and sent out six men to raise an army for the 
defense of Kansas and the Union. ... I am do- 
ing my utmost to conquer without bloodshed, and 
I believe that if my suggestions are acted upon 
promptly in the states we shall avoid a war. . . . 
Our plans are all well laid, and if the states will 
do their part promptly, I believe but little money 
will be actually used, and no lives lost." 

Among the six men dispatched eastward on a 
mission of explanation and appeal were J. S. Em- 
ery, M. F. Conway, and G. W. Smith. They left 
Lawrence about the middle of January in a buggy, 
which they soon found of little service on the 
snow-clogged roads. Before starting the company 
held a consultation concerning; the safest method of 
managing their credentials. Should some border- 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 105 

ruffian with a turn for investigation discover these 
credentials, the party would very likely receive 
rough usage. In the midst of their perplexities a 
bright thought struck Smith — " Boys, I 've hit 
it. In Missouri ever}' body carries a jug. There 
a jug never excites suspicion. Put the papers in 
jugs with corncob stoppers and they '11 be safe." 
The suggestion was greeted with applause and 
immediately carried into effect. Plodding slowly 
across the State of Missouri — the journey occu- 
pied two weeks — masquerading under various 
disguises, the travelers safely reached the Missis- 
sippi River opposite Quincy, Illinois, over which 
they walked on the ice. Midway in the river they 
halted, broke the jugs, and transferred the creden- 
tials to their pockets. This delegation, and other 
delegations that followed, successfully pleaded the 
free-state cause in the North and East. 

There was also stir and excitement at the 
South, from which bands of armed emigrants 
reached the territory during the spring and sum- 
mer of 1856. " Even in my own state," said Sen- 
ator Butler, of South Carolina, " I perceive parties 
are being formed to go to Kansas — adventurous 
young men who will fight anybody." The sena- 
tor probably had in mind the operations of Major 
Jefferson Buford, of Alabama, who conducted 
thither the most notorious company of Southern 
immigrants. Buford issued a call for three hun- 
dred men, promising them by way of inducements 



106 KANSAS. 

transportation, support for a year, a homestead, 
and the satisfaction of a chance at the abolition- 
ists. He fitted out the expedition largely from 
his own resources. To reimburse the outlay, it 
was understood that each member of the company 
would take up a claim, one half of which should 
be turned over to Buford. But the venture did 
not succeed financially, as few of the company be- 
came permanent residents of Kansas., 

The appearance of Buford on the border encoux'- 
aged the pro-slavery leaders. " Our hearts have 
been made glad," said the managers of the La- 
fayette Emigration Society, — a Missouri organi- 
zation, — in an appeal to the South, "by the late ar- 
rivals of large companies from South Carolina and 
Alabama. They have responded promptly to our 
call for help. The noble Buford is already en- 
deared to our hearts ; we love him ; we will fight 
for him and die for him and his companions. Who 
will follow his noble example ? We tell you now 
and tell you frankly, that unless you come quickly 
and come by thousands we are gone. The election 
once lost, we are lost forever. Then farewell to 
our Southern cause and farewell to our glorious 
jnion. 

Congress shared inevitably in the disturbances 
wliich radiated North and South from Kansas — 
a word seized upon according to the " Democratic 
Review " " by the most cunning of modern magi- 
cians, the abolitionists, to raise the devil with." 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 107 

Numerous expedients for allaying these disastrous 
agitations came to the surface. Senator Critten- 
den, of Kentucky, proposed unsuccessfully that 
Lieutenant-General Scott should be sent to Kan- 
sas as pacificator, equipped with " the sword in 
his left hand and in his right hand — peace, gen- 
tle peace." Toombs, of Georgia, submitted a plan 
of adjustment, the terms of which were fair and 
unpartisan. It contemplated the appointment of 
five commissioners — men of the highest charac- 
ter and selected from both parties — who should 
take an accurate census, apportion the territory 
into districts, and on the 4th of November, 1856, 
cause an election to be held for delegates to a con- 
stitutional convention, at which all male citizens, 
residents of three months' standing, might vote. 
December 1st these delegates were to assemble, 
take under advisement the question of establish- 
ing a state government, and, should it be decided 
affirmatively, enter at once upon the work. 

This bill, though energetically combated by 
anti-slavery senators from distrust of President 
Pierce, in whose hands the appointment of com- 
missioners was lodged, and from apprehensions that 
in some way Missouri would again decisively in- 
terfere, passed the Senate, but did not survive the 
opposition of the House. That body originated 
and sanctioned a measure known as the Dunn bill, 
the leading features of which were — the election 
of a new territorial legislature in November, the 



108 KANSAS. 

dismissal of criminal prosecutions for offenses 
against territorial laws, and the restoration of the 
Missouri Compromise, though it was stipulated 
that slaves, already in the territory, should not be 
disturbed before January, 1858. This scheme 
failed in the Senate. 

Out of the various bills, compromises, substi- 
tutes, amendments, which appeared in Congress 
during the spring and summer of 1856, a single 
measure only emerged that reached any practical 
importance — the appointment by the House of 
Representatives of an investigating committee, 
the members of which were William A. Howard, 
of Michigan, John Sherman, of Ohio, and Morde- 
cai Oliver, of Missouri. This committee proceeded 
to the territory, held its first meeting at Kansas 
City April 14th, examined three hundred and 
twenty -three witnesses, who represented every 
shade of political opinion, aiid on the 1st and 2d 
of July presented a report, in which a great mass 
of facts is accumulated wholly creditable to 
neither side. 

Early in the spring the local campaign showed 
signs of life. Sheriff Jones, who had a touch of 
genius for finding quarrel in a straw, led off in 
the revived operations. He still pursued the pol- 
icy which barely missed success in the Wakarusa 
war, fumed about Lawrence with much insolent 
ado, and attempted without success to arrest S. N. 
Wood, who, in addition to taking a prominent 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 109 

part in the Branson matter, had made himself 
still more obnoxious by doing effective free-state 
service on the stump in Ohio. Jones pursued his 
efforts to arrest different people at Lawrence, un- 
til at last he got a sharp blow in the face from 
somebody who resented his familiarities. There- 
upon he rode to Lecompton and reported to Gov- 
ernor Shannon that he had been assaulted in the 
discharge of his duties, and demanded a military 
escort for his protection. April 23d he reap- 
peared in town accompanied by Lieutenant Mc- 
intosh and eleven soldiers. He succeeded in ar- 
resting six citizens on the charge of " contempt 
of court," as they declined to assist him in 
making arrests during former visits. Instead of 
proceeding to Lecompton with his prisoners, he 
remained in town, possibly with the hope of ex- 
citing an attempt at rescue. Though threats 
had been freely made against him, he chose to 
spend the night in Mcintosh's tent rather than 
in less exposed quarters. During the evening 
Jones and the lieutenant went out to a neigh- 
boring water barrel for a drink. While they were 
there a shot was fired from a little knot of men 
standing at no great distance. " I believe that 
was intended for me," said Jones, with a shrug. 
The lieutenant thought he must be mistaken as 
several pistols had been discharged, apparently 
into the air, since night-fall. " That ivas intended 
for me," said Jones, when they returned to the 



110 KANSAS. 

tent, " for here is the hole in my pants." The 
lieutenant hurried out to investigate the affair. 
"I immediately joined the crowd," he reports, 
" and while speaking to them heard another shot, 
and at the same time some of my men exclaimed, 
'Lieutenant, the sheriff is dead.'" Not manj'- 
seconds later a young man — J. P. Filer by name 
— with his pistol still smoking — burst into a 
cabin hard by where two or three chums were sit- 
ting, and said, " Boys, hide this ; I 've shot Sheriff 
Jones." After a hasty consultation they decided 
not to betray the culprit, and pledged themselves 
by a solemn oath to silence. For a quarter of a 
century the secret was faithfully kept. 

The shooting intensified the general excite- 
ment. A public meeting of the citizens of Law- 
rence on the following day denounced it " as the 
act of some malicious and evil-disposed individ- 
ual," for whose arrest they offered a reward of 
five hundred dollars. The congressional investi- 
gating committee were in session at Lawrence, and 
Whitfield, pro-slavery delegate to Congress, seized 
upon the unfortunate affair as a plausible pretext 
for attempting to break down the investigation. 
He declared himself in fear for his life, expatiated 
on the unreasonableness of asking witnesses to 
venture into an assassin's den, and actually fled 
the town, but crept back in a few days on finding 
that his absence did not affect the committee. 
Pro-slavery newspapers eulogized Jones as a no- 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. Ill 

ble patriot, " shot down by the thieving paupers 
of the North." Though the wound did not prove 
fatal, reports of his death were current and roused 
fiercer passions upon the border than lay within 
the compass of any Branson-rescue exploit. " His 
murder shall be avenged," said the " Squatter 
Sovereign," " if at the sacrifice of every aboli- 
tionist in the territory. . . . We are now in favor 
of leveling Lawrence and chastising the traitors 
there congregated, should it result in the total 
destruction of the Union." 

At this juncture the pro-slavery cause was pow- 
erfully reinforced by the appearance in the field 
of the territorial judiciary. Early in May the 
grand jury of Douglas County was in session at 
Lecompton. This jury Judge S. D. Lecompte, 
chief justice of the territory, instructed at large 
in reference to the extraordinary conditions and 
responsibilities under which they met. An ex- 
position of the nature of treason figui^ed in the 
address, the tenor of which, the judge writes, De- 
cember 31st, 1884, "has been most grossly mis- 
represented." 

" I have been charged with resorting to a constructive 
treason as within the scope of legitimate prosecution. 
I made no such flagrant departure from recognized 
American authorities — I did not adopt as legitimate or 
tenable the monstrous proposition of stretching by con- 
struction the language of the Constitution to create a 
crime not within its clear and unavoidable import. I 



112 KANSAS. 

remember as if it were but yesterday that I distinctly 
and explicitly repudiated the doctrine of constructive 
treason. I remember, too, that I explained the phrase- 
ology of the Constitution on this point in the spirit, if 
not in the words, of Wharton. Passing to the state of 
public affairs I took up the question whether treason 
could be committed against the United States by levy- 
ing war upon the territorial government. I then held 
and still hold such hostility to be treason against the 
federal government. What constitutes hostility in this 
penal sense I also expounded with careful avoidance of 
adding a word beyond established doctrine. In my 
opinion the jury that dealt with these questions was 
not inferior to any of its successors in patriotism, fair- 
ness, or intelligence. That, in the madness of partisan 
strife, under the provocations of unprincipled leaders, 
• when the laws of the territory were denounced as 
* bogus,' their authority defied, and an opposing legisla- 
ture, without semblance of authority, set up, when in- 
surgent military forces were organizing, equipping, 
drilling — that, I say in such untoward circumstances, 
the judiciary should have felt called upon to instruct the 
grand jury upon the subject of treason, that the grand 
jury should have made presentments, and the district 
attorney preferred indictments, can hardly be a cause 
for wonder." 

On the list of traitors were Robinson, Reeder, 
Lane, and several other men prominent in free- 
state circles. A companion indictment for " usur- 
pation of office " was also issued against Robinson. 

In the reorganized campaign the first attack fell 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 113 

upon Reeder, who was summoned May 6th before 
the grand jury of Douglas County, while in at- 
tendance upon the investigating committee at Te- 
cumseh. He declined to obey the subpoena on 
the ground that it was of more importance that he 
should attend the sessions of the committee than 
of the grand jury. Thursday, May 8th, the com- 
mittee returned to Lawrence. There Deputy Mar- 
shal Fain appeared with an attachment against 
Reeder for " contempt of court." Reeder refused 
to be captured, and told the marshal that if he 
touched him it would be at his peril — a show of 
spirit that pleased the spectators, who came crowd- 
ing into the room. But the situation soon grew 
intolerable, and there was safety only in flight. 
Reeder succeeded in reaching Kansas City, where 
he lay concealed some days at the American House, 
a hotel kept by the Eldridge brothers. The well- 
known free -state character of the hotel gave it 
about town a bad name, which was now blackened 
especially by rumors that abolitionists were skulk- 
ing there — rumors that subjected it to constant 
mob - surveillance. On one occasion, suspicious 
border-ruffians resorted to a formal search of the 
premises, and it was only by the cleverest in- 
genuity and presence of mind on the part of the 
household that they failed to unearth the fugitive. 
While concealed in the hotel, Reeder concluded 
that the time had fully come to make his will, 
into which he incorporated a brief but vigorous de- 
8 



114 KANSAS. 

scription of the men who were frothing about his 
hiding-place, "I, Andrew H. Reeder : ... in 
danger of being murdered by a set of wild ruf- 
fians and outlaws, who are outside of all restraints 
of order, decency, and all social obligations, and 
who are below the savage in all the virtues of 
civilization ... in view of my death, which may 
happen to-day or to-morrow, make this last will 
and testament." 

Reeder escaped in disguise. Donning a suit of 
blue jean, with a battered straw hat on his head, 
a clay pipe in his mouth, and an axe in his hand 
— presenting the appearance of a seedy journey- 
man wood-chopper — he walked out of the hotel 
undetected, was rowed down the Missouri to an 
out-of-the-way landing, where a friendly river 
captain, who was in the secret, stopped for him. 
" Get aboard, you old scallawag," shouted the 
captain with simulated gruffness as the steamer 
touched the landing. "I won't wait two minutes 
for you ! " 

The Lecompton authorities intended to act 
with no less vigor in Robinson's case. The gen- 
eral plan of operations came to his ears through 
some defection among the grand jury. What 
course ought to be pursued in the crisis was the 
subject of anxious discussion. An all night con- 
sultation took place in Topeka, at which John 
Sherman, W. A. Howard, Charles Robinson, and 
W. Y. Roberts, together with Mrs. Sherman and 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 115 

Mrs. Robinson, were present, to settle upon a line 
of policy. Should the territorial laws, which 
denounced penalties of imprisonment against the 
utterance of anti-slavery sentiments, be enforced, 
a wholesale locking up of free-state men would 
follow. The conclusions reached at the conference 
had a belligerent look. For the first and last 
time, representatives of the state government se- 
riously entertained purposes of resisting the ter- 
ritorial authorities. The plans as outlined con- 
templated further appeals to the North in hope of 
stirring it to active measures of sympathy, urged 
free-state men, obnoxious to the authorities, to 
avoid arrest as far as possible, and recommended 
the calling of an extra session of the state legis- 
lature for the purpose of putting the militia on a 
war-footing, in order to be prepared for emergen- 
cies. A halt must be called somewhere. If pro- 
slavery men were determined to force a collision, 
no better spot offered for a hostile stand than 
the state government. It was agreed that Gov- 
ernor Robinson should proceed eastward without 
delay to avoid the grand jury, as that body had 
as yet taken no action in his case ; that he should 
confer with anti-slavery friends, and put the testi- 
mony thus far taken before the investigating com- 
mittee beyond the reach of pro-slavery men, who 
would have been glad to get possession of it. 

The plan miscarried. Governor Robinson got 
no farther eastward than Lexington, Missouri, 



116 KANSAS. 

where lie was seized and detained. Mrs. Rob- 
inson, who was allowed to proceed, delivered the 
papers of the congressional committee to Governor 
Chase, of Ohio, and prosecuted the political func- 
tions of the embassy by visiting New England and 
by attending the republican state convention of 
Illinois. 

The arrest at Lexington was entirely arbitrary. 
Robinson remained there under surveillance nearly 
a week before the necessary legal papers could be 
obtained from Kansas. When they arrived he 
was handed over to Federal Colonel Preston, who 
set out with him for Lecompton. The route lay 
through Lawrence. "If the people of Lawrence," 
said Preston, " attempt a rescue, of which I hear 
rumors, the escort will shoot you on the spot." 
This communication was not kindly received. 
"Well," the Colonel replied, "such are my or- 
ders." Governor Shannon, apprehending trouble, 
stopped the party at Franklin, and ordered it back 
to Kansas City. From that point the party pro- 
ceeded up the river to Leavenworth, which was 
reached Saturday, May 24th. The prisoner expe- 
rienced no special ill-usage in Leavenworth until 
Monday, the 26th, when there was a tremendous 
ferment. During the day newspaper extras ar- 
rived containing reports of free-state outrages on 
the Pottawatomie — reports that pro-slavery set- 
tlers in that region had been dragged from their 
cabins at dead of night and butchered. The news 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 117 

quickly called together an excited, angry, desper- 
ate crowd. A proposition to retaliate by mobbing 
the free-state governor roused general and bois- 
terous enthusiasm. Thomas H. Gladstone, corre- 
spondent of the London " Times," and author of 
" Kansas ; or, Squatter Life and Border Warfare 
in the Far West," mingled among the rioters and 
caught some of their talk : " Let us get hold of 
him ; if we don't sarve him out powerful quick. 
The hangin' bone villain, he may say his prayers 
mighty smart now. 1 11 be dog-gauned if we don't 
string him up afore the day 's out. Hangin 's a 
nation sight too good for him, the mean cuss. He 
ought to have been shot through the head right 
away — that's how I'd sarve him." A Mis- 
sourian — an old California acquaintance whose 
life Robinson had saved years before by timely 
medical service in a cholera panic — called toward 
evening. He seemed very much affected, and 
did not speak for some minutes. "You once did 
me a good turn," he finally managed to say, "and 
I 've been trying to repay it all day. The boys 
have decided to kill you. I 've done everything 
in my power to quiet them, but it 's no use. I 
thought I 'd come and tell you about it." Only 
by the greatest exertion did the authorities suc- 
ceed in defeating the plans of the lynchers. The 
chief justice of the territory, whose discourse on 
treason before a grand jury initiated the whole 
movement, a major-general of militia, and a 



118 KANSAS. 

United States marshal stood guard over the pris- 
oner daring the night and saw him on the way 
to Lecompton early in the morning before the 
town was astir. 

The grand jury of Douglas County wrought 
great havoc among free - state leaders — Reeder 
fleeing in the disguise of a wood-chopper, Rob- 
inson a prisoner, Lane out of the territory, and 
other men, to whom the public confidence had 
been given, soon to be successfully hunted down. 
But this triumphant grand jury had not yet run 
its course. It found bills of indictment against 
two newspapers of Lawrence — the " Herald of 
Freedom" and the "Kansas Free State " — whose 
inflammatory and seditious language overpassed 
the limits of sufferance, and against the principal 
hotel of that town, which some extraordinary ob- 
liquity of vision transformed into a military for- 
tress, " regularly parapeted and port-holed for the 
use of cannon and small arms." 

Well aware that the business in hand could not 
be accomplished unless aided by a military force, 
Marshal Donaldson issued a proclamation calling 
upon law-abiding citizens to rally at Lecompton 
for his assistance. It was time to cease dawdling. 
Lawrence, that " foul blot on the soil of Kansas," 
must be humiliated ; her newspaper press, w^ag- 
ging its tongue most vilel}', silenced ; her battle- 
raented stone hotel, headquarters of abolitionism 
and property of the infamous Emigrant Aid Com- 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 119 

pany, demolished, and any skulking and uncaged 
remnant of traitors that were harbored in the town 
seized or scared out of the territory. Marshal 
Donaldson's proclamation, circulated for the most 
part in three or four pro-slavery towns of the ter- 
ritory, and in the border counties across the river, 
precipitated a large armed multitude toward the 
rendezvous at Lecompton — wild, hectic, mischief- 
meaning gangs, men cultivating the proprieties 
more or less in Missouri, but relapsing into a state 
of semi-barbarism when they touched the soil of 
Kansas. Governor Shannon was not at ease over 
the matter. " Had the marshal called on me for 
a posse," he wrote President Pierce, " I should 
have felt bound to furnish him one composed en- 
tirely of United States troops." President Pierce 
also was in a disquieted frame of mind. " My 
knowledge of facts is imperfect," he wrote Shan- 
non May 23d, "but with the force of Colonel 
Sumner at hand I perceive no occasion for the 
posse, armed or unarmed, which the marshal is 
said to have assembled at Lecompton." 

Lawrence took apprehensive note of the hostile 
preparations and resorted, as during earlier trou- 
bles, to a committee of safety. Great confusion 
prevailed. None of the old leaders were on the 
ground, and new ones had not yet won their spurs. 
After many conferences and discussions the com- 
mittee decided to temporize, to expostulate, to 
manuoevre — in a word, to do anything except 



120 KANSAS. 

fight. This unwarlike diplomacy, though not par- 
ticularly soul -inspiring, was doubtless politic. 
When Donaldson's proclamation reached Law- 
rence, the citizens held a public meeting and pro- 
nounced the charges of insuboi'dination and dis- 
loyalty contained in it unqualifiedly false. They 
sent messages, expostulations, appeals to Lecomp- 
ton in swift, nervous succession. Nothing of 
overture and concession did they leave untried. 
" We only await an opportunity," pleaded these 
unappreciated and despondent patriots, "to test 
our fidelity to the laws of the country, the Con- 
stitution, and the Union." Deprecatory and ex- 
culpating talk fell unheeded. No humilities of 
concession could divert the invaders from their 
prey. 

Discomforts and perils thickened. May 19th a 
detachment of the marshal's posse shot a young 
man — mainly for the sensation and satisfaction 
of killing an abolitionist. Three adventurous fel- 
lows, presumably intoxicated, on hearing the news, 
snatched their weapons, dashed out of Lawrence 
to hunt the scoundrels, and began a fusillade upon 
the first travelers they encountered without any 
nice preliminary investigations. The expedition 
turned out unfortunately for the assailants. An- 
other abolitionist was converted into " wolf-meat." 

Tuesday, May 20th, was a day of quiet. Little 
of the stir and confusion that naturally belong to 
military operations appeared. Citizens of Law- 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 121 

rence began to take heart, and to conjecture that 
the peril might have been exaggerated. But 
Wednesday morning they were undeceived. At 
an early hour a troop of horsemen quietly took 
possession of the bluffs west of town. Reinforce- 
ments gradually swelled the numbers during the 
morning until they reached several hundreds. It 
was a representative gathering — including the 
principal pro-slavery leaders, with Atchison at 
their head, the recent recruits from South Caro- 
lina and other states, the usual delegations of 
Missourians, and a sprinkling of actual residents 
in the territory. 

The town lay in Sabbatic repose at the foot of 
the bluff. When it was definitely settled that 
there should be no resistance, most of the arms- 
bearing population whisked away like sea-birds 
blown landward by a tempest. The committee 
of safety insti-ucted citizens who remained in town 
to ignore with lofty unconcern the whole noxious 
brood of marshals, sheriffs, and posses, and to go 
about their affairs as usual. Fearing that the un- 
natural quietude might hide some ambush, Atchi- 
son dispatched runners from the bluff to recon- 
noitre. They reported that the cowardly Yankees 
would not fight — a disposition that radically sim- 
plified the business of writ-service. 

At eleven o'clock Deputy Marshal Fain, attended 
by an escort of six coatless men with revolvers 
belted about them, walked down into the village 



122 KANSAS. 

and arrested three men whose names were on the 
treason-list. Never were fewer obstacles thrown 
in the path of an officer. The alleged traitors, if 
they did not actually present themselves for ar- 
rest, conformed to the meekest and most inoffen- 
sive models of behavior. What is more, the com- 
mittee of safety handed the deputy marshal a 
note addressed to Donaldson, in which they vir- 
tually abandoned everything for which free-state 
men contended, and whipped over upon out and 
out law and order ground. But this last and un- 
reserved concession availed as little as those which 
preceded it. 

After Deputy Marshal Fain's peaceable and 
easy success in making arrests, pro-slavery leaders 
— Atchison, Jones, Donaldson, General Richard- 
son, of the territorial militia. Colonel Titus, of 
Florida, Major Jackson, of Georgia, and others — 
ventured from the bluffs and rode about town on 
a tour of observation. S. W. Eldridge, proprietor 
of the hotel, so ill-reputed in pro-slavery quarters, 
politely asked the strolling gentry to dine, and 
they cheerfully accepted the invitation. But even 
a good dinner, and that without charge, carried no 
more influence as a town-saver than the surren- 
dering protocols. 

The afternoon presented a more exciting scene. 
With the successful bagging of traitors, the primal 
and technical duties of the escort were concluded. 
But the nuisances were not yet abated. Marshal 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 123 

Donaldson and liis advisers, though some of them 
belonged to the legal fraternit}^, reposed an aston- 
ishing confidence in the virtues and prerogatives 
of the famous grand jury of Douglas County. 
Scorning such intermediate steps as citations, 
hearings, opportunities for explanation or defense, 
and the like, they wrecked a hotel and threw two 
printing-presses into the river, upon the authority 
of a bare grand jury presentation. " That pre- 
sentment," said Judge Lecompte in a letter, Au- 
gust 1st, 1856, to Hon. J. A. Stewart, of Mary- 
land, " still lies in court. No time for action on 
it existed — none has been had — no order passed 
— nothing done, and nothing ever dreamed of 
being done, because nothing could rightly be done 
but upon the finding of a petit jury." 

But let the posse give attention. A crier is 
riding about among the men shouting— " I am 
authorized to say that the marshal has no fur- 
ther use for you ; thanks you for the manner in 
which you have discharged your duties ; asks you 
to make out a statement of the number of days of 
service with afiidavit and you shall be paid. Now, 
gentlemen, I summons you as the posse of Sheriff 
Jones. He is a law and order man, and acts un- 
der the same authority as the marshal." 

Jones, scarcely recovered from his wound, was 
received with applause. The situation pleased 
him well, much better than it did Atchison, who 
thundered indeed, during the months of prepara- 



124 KANSAS. 

tion, against the Yankees with full throated ora- 
tory — outdone in verbal savageness only by the 
junior editor of the " Squatter Sovereign," a mod- 
ern Herod, who swore that he was pi-epared " to 
kill a baby if he knew it would grow up an ab- 
olitionist." But now, in the presence of opportu- 
nities for transmuting words into deeds, Atchison 
urged moderation. " I made several speeches, at 
least half a dozen," he said, in an account of the 
affair October, 1884, " riding horseback, to the dif- 
ferent companies. I spoke in the interest of peace 
— exerting myself to check, not to incite, outrage. 
It was not my wish that the hotel should be de- 
stroyed. I urged Jones to spare it. I told him 
that it would satisfy the ends of justice if he 
should throw a cannon-ball through it and there 
let the matter rest. But Jones was bent on mis- 
chief, and I could do nothing with him." The 
" Squatter Sovereign " of June 24th, 1856, de- 
nounces current free -state versions of Atchi- 
son's talk as false, and gives what it alleges to be 
a trustworthy text. " He exhorted the men 
above everything to remember that they were 
marching to enforce, not to violate, laws ; to sup- 
press, and not to spread, outrage and violence." 
Nor was Atchison alone in deprecating excesses. 
On the day after the destruction of the town, nine 
citizens of Lawrence met in Lane's cabin and 
drew up a memorial to President Pierce, denounc- 
ing the territorial oflBcials as a set of men who 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 125 

" attempt the administration of law on principles 
of perjury and brigandage, . . . utterly ignoring 
the oaths they have taken, ... at will despoiling 
men of their property and lives." These nine 
sharp-tongued citizens wish to put on record the 
fact that many " captains of the invading com- 
panies exerted themselves to the utmost for the 
protection of life and property. Some of them 
. . . endeavored to dissuade Samuel J. Jones from 
[his fell designs]. . . . Colonel Zadock Jackson, 
of Georgia, did not scruple to denounce either in 
his own camp or in Lawrence the outrages. . . . 
Colonel Buford, of Alabama, also disclaimed hav- 
ing come to Kansas to destroy property." But 
the immitigable Jones successfully faced down all 
pacific talk. 

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the 
great posse marched down from its camp, drag- 
ging along five pieces of artillery, and began 
slowly to feel its way up Massachusetts Street — 
a main thoroughfare of the town. The caution 
and deliberation of the movement indicated fear 
that a hidden enemy might suddenly dash out from 
the cabins, or deliver an unexpected volley from 
behind the still extant earth-works built during 
the Wakarusa war. Banners this host bore with 
various devices — "South Cai-olina," "Southern 
rights," "Superiority of the white race," "Kan- 
sas the outpost." One flag was alternately striped 
in black and white ; another had the national 



126 ' KANSAS. 

stripes with a tiger in place of the union. But 
no ambushing enemy sprang upon the wavy war- 
riors. Wlien the last rifle-pits were reached, and 
all visions of peril vanished like smoke-wreaths 
into the air, a yell of triumph burst from the 
ranks. It was now straightforward, innoxious, 
larkish business. The posse made short work of 
the printing-offices — breaking up presses, rioting 
calamitousl}'^ among files, type, stock, exchanges ; 
hurling the ruins into the street, or dumping 
them into the river. Here assuredly was a legi- 
ble lesson which impudent newspapers that railed 
against territorial laws and spoke disrespectfully 
of slavery might profitably lay to heart. 

The stone hotel required more elaborate and 
painstaking attention. Jones rode up in front of 
it, called for S. C. Pomeroy, a representative of 
the Emigrant Aid Company, and as " deputy 
marshal of the United States and sheriff of Doug- 
las County " demanded possession of all Sharpe's 
rifles and all artillery in town. Pomeroy, after 
an expeditious and fugitive consultation with the 
committee of safety, replied that the rifles were 
private property, and therefore beyond his con- 
trol, but that a cannon had been secreted there- 
abouts which would be turned over to him. The 
concession was enhanced by the fact of Pomeroy 's 
consenting to act as guide to the surreptitious 
arsenal. Such service ought to have put him on 
good terms with the champions of law and order, 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 127 

but the ingrates, so far from appreciating his ex- 
ertions, had the heartlessness to discuss, though 
probably with no very serious intent, the question 
of hanging him. 

Jones directed the hotel to be emptied of furni- 
ture, but his order was only partially carried out. 
The five pieces of artillei'y bristled in a row just 
across the street, and opened fire upon the nui- 
sance that had sinned so grievously and unforgiva- 
bly against the public safety. " I counted thirty 
shots," said an on-looker. The cannonade inflicted 
trifling damage in the porous concrete walls, and 
a swifter method of destruction was sought out. 
If the building could not readily be battered 
down, certainly it could be blown to pieces. A 
keg of gunpowder was carried into the parlor and 
a slow-match of bepowdered lard prepared. Fu- 
riously did the train hiss and sizzle and splutter, 
emitting great volumes of smoke, and promising a 
hideous climax of devastation ; but the explosion, 
which reminded the spectator, who counted the 
artillery discharges, of " a blast down in a well," 
accomplished little beyond breaking a few panes 
of glass. In the discomfiture of more pretentious 
appliances of destruction, an elemental and prim- 
itive leveler remained, to which there was suc- 
cessful resort — the torch. The sons of law and 
order victoriously fired the hotel, but not until 
after a careful examination of the liquor cellar. 
Researches in that quarter may have been in some 



128 KANSAS. 

degree responsible for the turbulence with which 
the nuisance-abating concluded. Stores were pil- 
laged, houses rummaged, and Governor Robin- 
son's residence was burnt to the ground. Nothing 
escaped the curious and inquisitive marauders — 
neither trunks, drawei's, cupboards, nor clothes- 
presses. More than one seedy wardrobe was re- 
fitted out of the spoils. Gladstone encountered 
some of the ruffians at Kansas City on their re- 
turn, and remarked a " grotesque intermixture in 
their dress, having crossed their native red shirt 
with a satin vest or narrow dress -coat pillaged 
from some Lawrence Yankee, or having girded 
themselves with the cords and tassels which the 
day before had ornamented the curtains of the 
free-state hotel." 

While these calamities were overtaking the 
territory a startling pro -slavery denouement oc- 
curred in Washington. Charles Sumner began 
his speech on " The Crime against Kansas " May 
19th, which he concluded on the afternoon of the 
20th, when the posse of Marshal Donaldson was 
tightening its coils about Lawrence. The speech, 
a brilliant, indignant, unmeasured, exasperating 
philippic against the course of the slave-power in 
Kansas, raised a violent and angry excitement. 
General Cass pronounced it " the most un-Ameri- 
can and unpatriotic speech that ever grated on 
the ears " of Congress. " He has not hesitated 
to charge more than three fourths of the Senate 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 129 

with fraud, with swindling, wdth crime, with in- 
famy, at least a hundred times over in his speech," 
roared Douglas ; " is it his object to provoke 
some one of us to kick him as we would a dog in 
the street, that he may get sympathy upon the 
just chastisement ? " Mason, of Virginia, lamented 
that public interests and usage forced association 
in the Senate Chamber with " one utterly incapa- 
ble of knowing what truth is " — with " one whom 
to see elsewhere is to shun and despise." 

Preston S. Brooks, representative from South 
Carolina, reduced to practice Douglas's suggestion. 
After the adjournment of the Senate, May 22d, 
while Sumner remained writing at his desk, Brooks 
approached, muttered out charges of libeling 
South Carolina and her sons, and followed them 
up by repeated blows on the head with a cane. 
The senator fell insensible to the floor. This 
affair was a fit companion piece to the destruction 
of Lawrence. 

When one more blow should be delivered — 
the dispersal of the free-state legislature, which 
was to meet at Topeka on the 4th of July — would 
not the pro-slavery triumph be complete ? On 
whom should be conferred the honor of adminis- 
tering a coup de grace to abolitionism in Kansas 
was a matter of debate. The patriots who distin- 
guished themselves in May were anxious to take 
the field again in July. A hum of preparation 
ran along the border. Buford and the Southern 

9 



130 KANSAS. 

colonels put their men into training, but the au- 
thorities in Washington began audibly to demur. 
The suspicions and fears of President Pierce ri- 
pened into convictions ; he did not wish to have 
any more armed mobs convoked to enforce the 
laws. It was settled that federal troops should 
furnish whatever assistance territorial officers 
might need in their dealings with the pin-feather 
state government. These functionaries concurred 
in advising a semi-heroic treatment as the mildest 
recommendable course. Governor Shannon, tem- 
porarily out of the territory, wrote Colonel Sum- 
ner to disperse the legislature, should it assemble 
— " peaceably if you can, forcibly if you must." 
Sumner, though friendly to free-state interests, 
disapproved the Topeka movement. " I am de- 
cidedly of opinion," he wrote Acting - governor 
Woodson June 28th, " that that body of men 
ought not to be permitted to assemble. It is not 
too much to say that the peace of the country de- 
pends upon it." June 30th Woodson wrote Sum- 
ner in an apprehensive strain. " There is now no 
ground to doubt," he said, " that the bogus legis- 
lature will attempt to convene on the 4th proximo 
at Topeka, and the most extensive preparations 
are being made for the occasion. The country in 
the vicinity of Topeka is represented to be filled 
with strangers, who are making their way toward 
that point from all directions. Last evening I 
received information . . . that General Lane was 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 131 

on his way to Topeka with a very large force, and 
was then somewhere between that place and the 
Nebraska line. ... It is deemed important that 
you should be at Topeka in person. . . . Judge 
Cato will be on the ground, and I have addressed 
a letter to the United States district attorney, 
Colonel Isaacs, requesting him to come over at 
once and attend in person to getting out the 
necessary legal processes." Colonel Sumner left 
Leavenworth for Topeka July 1st, where he con- 
centrated five companies of dragoons with two 
pieces of artillery. " I shall act very warily," 
he wrote the adjutant general, " and shall require 
the civil authorities to take the lead in the matter 
throughout." 

The bustle of hostile preparations in federal 
camps and in Missouri, as well as among terri- 
torial officials, had a discouraging and unbracing 
influence upon members of the state legislature. 
Unless a tonic of some kind could be adminis- 
tered, many of them might fail to appear in To- 
peka on the 4th of July, and the whole anti-slav- 
ery movement come to an inglorious collapse. To 
keep up courage, to secure a general interchange 
and discussion of opinion, a curious double-headed 
conference began in Topeka on the 3d — an extra 
and informal session of the legislature and a nu- 
merously attended mass-convention. Both legis- 
lature and convention wrestled with the same 
perplexing question — What ought to be done in 



132 KANSAS. 

the present emergency? No formal and accred- 
ited policy emerged from the babel of discordant 
sentiments. Some members of these bodies urged 
that the state legislature should meet and proceed 
with business until dispersed by the federal au- 
thorities ; others denounced further resistance to 
the territorial laws as a blunder, and counseled 
immediate submission. Governor Robinson and 
the free-state prisoners confined at Lecompton ad- 
dressed a letter to the legislature, deprecating the 
adoption of any timorous, faint-hearted policy. 
That in the disjointed condition of affairs there 
might be some recognized authority, the mass- 
convention appointed a " Kansas Central State 
Committee," thirteen in number, and authorized 
it " to assume the management and control of the 
free - state party of Kansas." The general com- 
mittee chose an executive committee of five : J. 
P. Root, president ; H. Miles Moore, secretary ; 
James Blood, William Hutchinson, and S. E. 
Martin. 

Colonel Sumner, on reaching Topeka, opened 
communications at once with free-state men. He 
sent for Captain Samuel Walker — a personal 
friend and a member of the legislature. " I hear 
Lane is on the other side of the river," said Sum- 
ner, " and means to fight. How is that ? " " There 
is n't a word of truth in the story. Lane is not 
in the territory. He is somewhere in the East 
making speeches." Marshal Donaldson, who was 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 133 

present, listened to the conversation with interest. 
"If I should get up before those legislative fel- 
lows," he inquired, " to read a proclamation, 
would n't some devil shoot at me ? " " Nobody," 
said Walker, " will lift a finger against you." 

The convention sent a committee to confer with 
Colonel Sumner. He was very anxious that the 
legislature should not meet at all, as he wished 
to escape the odium of coercive measures. That 
point the committee refused to yield. An under- 
standing, however, was reached that the legisla- 
ture should assemble and begin to organize, but 
quietly disperse at the command of the federal 
authorities. 

The 4th of July found Topeka thronged with 
men, women, and children. Two free-state mili- 
tary companies were also in town. A nervous, 
wistful, depressed sentiment prevailed, as people 
at large were not in the secret of the cut-and- 
dried programme. The mass-convention, think- 
ing its mission not yet fully accomplished, fearing 
that at the last moment a panic might seize upon 
the legislature and prevent it from assembling, 
resumed its sessions in the morning and fell lus- 
tily to work. 

During the forenoon Marshal Donaldson, accom- 
panied by Judge Rush Elmore, associate justice 
of the territory, sallied forth with a batch of of- 
ficial documents : President Pierce's proclama- 
tion of February 11th, which commanded " all 



134 KANSAS. 

persons engaged in unlawful combinations against 
the constituted authority of the territory of Kan- 
sas ... to disperse ; " Governor Shannon's proc- 
lamation of June 4th ; a proclamation fresh from 
Acting - governor Woodson's own hand, forbid- 
ding " persons claiming legislative powers and au- 
thorities," on the point of assembling in Topeka, 
to organize " under the penalties attached to all 
willful violators of the laws of the land ; " and 
finally a proclamation from Colonel Sumner, who 
announced that he should " sustain the executive 
of the territory." 

Mistaking the mass-convention, gasconading in 
the streets, for the legislature, Marshal Donaldson 
informed the presiding officer that he had commu- 
nications for the assembly. The marshal declined 
to risk so doubtful an experiment as reading aloud 
in public, and asked Judge Elmore to take his 
place. Donaldson retired with confusion of face 
when he discovered that lie had pitched bis bomb- 
shells into the wrong camp. 

As the hour of twelve, when the legislature was 
to meet, approached, the dragoons, encamped on 
the outskirts of the town, formed in order of bat- 
tle, dashed toward Constitutional Hall and sur- 
rounded it, while the two pieces of artillery, with 
gunners at their posts and slow-matcbes burning, 
commanded the principal street. 

It lacked a few minutes of noon when Colonel 
Sumner entered the House of Representatives. 



SOME HEAVY BLOWS. 135 

Roll-call soon began, but no quorum was present ; 
or, rather, a majority of the members, not under- 
standing that the perils which seemed so formi- 
dable were of a pasteboard sort, did not answer to 
their names. After some activity on the part of 
the sergeant-at-arms there was a second reading of 
the membership list. Only seventeen responded. 
Colonel Sumner then rose and commanded the 
legislature to disperse — a duty which at the be- 
ginning and at the close of his brief speech he 
declared to be the most painful of his whole life. 

This 4th of July demonstration was accorded a 
cold reception in Washington. Jefferson Davis, 
secretary of war, was disturbed by the affair. " I 
looked upon them [the members of the state leg- 
islature]," said he, " as men assembled without 
authority, men who could pass no law that should 
ever be put in execution, and that the crime would 
be in attempting to put the law in execution, and 
in the mean time they might be considered as a 
mere town meeting." Colonel Sumner did not 
escape official displeasure for his part in the trans- 
action. In defense he fell back upon verbal req- 
uisitions of Acting-governor Woodson, who " was 
personally present in my camp desiring the in- 
terposition of the troops." 

Missouri leaders, not sharing in the apprehen- 
sions of reaction that troubled the administration, 
now sunned themselves in the glow of victories 
apparently decisive. " It was everywhere antici- 



136 KANSAS. 

pated," in the words of an address issued Janu- 
ary, 1857, by the National Democracy of Kansas, 
" that these events would put an end to violence 
and restore the country to law and order and 
quiet." But these anticipations turned out to be 
delusive. Heavy blows had indeed been struck, 
but they were ill-advised, misdirected blows, and 
recoiled disastrously upon those who delivered 
them. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

DUTCH henry's CEOSSING, BLACK JACK, AND 
OSAWATOMIB. 

John Brown is a parenthesis in the history 
of Kansas, The immense vibration of his career 
upon the nation had its source in the Virginia 
campaign and its ill-fated but heroic sequel, rather 
than in contributions to the territorial struggle. 
His course there — at war with the policy which 
finally defeated the slave power and saved Kansas 
from its clutch, pitched to the strain of revolution, 
tending to inaugurate a conflict of arms on the 
border — would never have given wing to his re- 
nown. 

Born in Torrington, Connecticut, May 9th, 
1800, and descended from substantial Puritan an- 
cestors, John Brown had a youth and boyhood full 
of hardships and privations. He pursued differ- 
ent vocations — was successively tanner, wool-mer- 
chant, and farmer — but won no great success in 
any of these callings. Other interests absorbed 
him. 

" From childhood I have been possessed 
By a fire — by a trixe fire, or faint or fierce." 



138 KANSAS. 

That fire was a consuming sentiment of anti-slav- 
ery passion. 

John Brown reached Kansas in the autumn of 
1855. He came in response to appeals for arms 
from his sons, five of whom preceded him to the 
territory and settled at Osawatomie. He found 
them in circumstances sufficiently uncomfortable : 
" no houses to shelter one of them ; no hay or 
corn-fodder of any account secured; shivering 
over their little fires, all exposed to the dreadfully 
cutting winds morning and evening and stormy 
days." 

It was not the purpose to make a home for him- 
self in Kansas, nor to aid his sons in their wilder- 
ness-struggle, that brought John Brown to the ter- 
ritory, but the conviction that opportunity, long 
deferred, had at last offered for a blow at the slave 
system. 

" 'T is time 
New hopes should animate the world, new light 
Should dawn from new revealings to a race 
Weighed down so long." 

Such were the inspirations that dictated an im- 
mediate and personal response to the western sig- 
nal of distress. Whatever else may be laid to his 
charge — whatever rashness, unwisdom, equivoca- 
tion, bloodiness — no faintest trace of self-seeking 
stains his Kansas life. In behalf of the cause 
which fascinated and ruled him he was prepared 
to sacrifice its enemies, and if the offering proved 



DUTCH HENSrS CROSSINO. 139 

inadequate to sacrifice himself. He belonged to 
that Hebraic, Old Testament, iron type of human- 
ity in which the sentiment of justice — narrowed 
to warfare upon a single evil, pursuing it with 
concentrated and infinite hostility as if it epito- 
mized all the sinning of the universe — assumed 
an exaggerated importance. It was a type of 
humanity to which the lives of individual men, 
weighed against the interests of the inexorable 
cause, seem light and trivial as the dust of a but- 
terfly's wing. John Brown would have been at 
home among the armies of Israel that gave the 
guilty cities of Canaan to the sword, or among the 
veterans of Cromwell who ravaged Ireland in the 
name of the Lord. When the " Souldier's Pocket 
Bible " — a collection of texts which lent inspira- 
tion to Cromwell's veterans, and shows the " qual- 
ifications of his inner man that is a fit Souldier to 
fight in the Lord's Battels both before he fight, in 
the fight, and after the fight " — was once put into 
his hands he sat down and read it, apparently with 
the most intense and absorbing interest. There 
he read, " Scriptures . . . fitly applied to the Soul- 
diers several occasions" — read that the soldier 
must be valiant for God's cause, must put his con- 
fidence in God's wisdom and strength, must pray 
before he goes to fight, must love his enemies as 
they are his enemies, and hate them as they are 
God's enemies, and must consider that God hath 
ever been accustomed to give the victory to a few ! 



140 KANSAS. 

That such a man, an astray and out-of-season 
Puritan, persuaded that God had called him, as 
propliets and priests were called in ancient times, 
to the work of fighting slavery, his policy one 
seamless garment of force — that such a man 
should stand almost alone in Kansas, should fail 
to rally any large following, should touch the 
general councils and activities spasmodically, in- 
cidentall}^ was inevitable. The policy of free- 
state leaders, in general harmony with the advice 
of outside friends, shunned violence of every sort. 
It esjDecially avoided collision with the federal au- 
thorities. This wise policy experienced compara- 
tively few lapses, though at times the temptation 
to abandon it was very strong. John Brown dis- 
trusted peaceful methods. He was quite as ready 
to fight as " the adventurous young men from 
South Carolina." In his opinion all marauding 
rascals from Missouri and elsewhere should be 
asked to show their passports. For the disorders 
of the territory (mere local eruptions of a chronic, 
deadly national malady, the cure of which rather 
than the salvation of Kansas haunted him) he 
had one sovereign remedy — violence. Gerrit 
Smith, in a speech before the Kansas Convention 
at Buffalo, July 9th and 10th, 1856, gave expres- 
sion to sentiments of which John Brown was a 
strenuous, uncompromising exponent on the bor- 
der. " You are here," he said, " looking to bal- 
lots when you should be looking to bayonets ; 



DUTCH HENRTS CROSSING. 141 

counting up voters when you should be muster- 
ing armed, and none but armed, emigrants. . . . 
They [members of the convention] are here to 
save Kansas. . . . But I am here to promote the 
killing of American slavery." 

News of the attack upon Lawrence May 21st 
reached Osawatomie by courier during the day. 
Two rifle companies, recently organized for the 
defense of the neighborhood, and numbering fifty 
or sixty men, hastily mustered under command of 
John Brown, Jr., and began a forced night march 
toward Lawrence. John Brown accompanied the 
expedition. On the morning of the 22d they 
halted and went into camp near Palmyra, where 
they were joined by Captain S. T. Shore with a 
number of armed men, who informed them of the 
destruction of Lawrence. Here they remained 
until the 23d, when they moved on to Palmyra. 
Two days later Lieutenant J. R. Church with 
thirteen men reached their camp. 

" I came upon a body of men from Osawatomie and 
the surrounding country," the lieutenant reported, " who, 
as well as I could judge, numbered some seventy or 
eighty, although they pretended to have about a hun- 
dred and thirty. This body was commanded by a Cap- 
tain Brown. . . . They had been at Palmyra two days, 
and had frightened off a number of pro-slavery settlers, 
and forced off, as far as I could learn, two families. I 
immediately stated to Captain Brown that the assembly 
of large parties of armed men, on either side, was illegal, 



142 KANSAS. 

and called upon him to disperse. After considerable 
talk he consented to disband his party and return home." 

jTwo days before this interview with Lieutenant 
Church, disquieting rumors reached camp from 
Dutch Henry's Crossing. H. H. Williams arrived 
from this neighborhood and reported that pro- 
slavery men, in the absence of the rifle compa- 
nies, were attempting a line of policy which Cap- 
tain John Brown, Jr., prosecuted successfully at 
Palmyra — the expulsion of obnoxious people. 
Border-ruffian notifications to leave the country 
breezed with particular violence about a timid, 
nervous old shop-keeper, by the name of Morse, 
who supplied the riflemen with ammunition. 

Though a company of Buford's men had pitched 
camp not far away, to which John Brown once 
paid a visit of espial in the mask of a federal 
surveyor ; though the Rev. Martin White, a de- 
vout, biblical, rabid, shot-gun pro-slavery divine, 
resided in the neighborhood, yet no serious dis- 
turbances had hitherto broken out in the vicin- 
ity of Osawatomie, or Dutch Henry's Crossing 
— nothing worse than gusty, sulphurous, foul- 
mouthed talk, in which both parties were remark- 
ably proficient. 

Williams's narrative caused the sudden organi- 
zation of a secret foray into the troubled district. 
Williams represents John Brown, who had joined 
the group of listeners gathered about him, as say- 
ing at the close of his story, " It is time to stop 



DUTCH HENRY'S CROSSING. 143 

that sort of thing. It has gone on long enough. 
I '11 attend to those fellows." An hour or two 
later Williams visited a shed near the camp, under 
which stood a grindstone. A squad of men were 
there sharpening their cutlasses. " What 's up ? " 
asked Williams. " We are going down upon the 
Pottawatomie to take care of the ruffians who are 
making trouble there," somebody replied. " We 
are going down," added John Brown, who was 
watching operations with interest, " to make an 
example. Won't you go ? " Williams declined. 

The expedition was a meagre affair numerically. 
Seven or eight men comprised the entire muster- 
roll. They were all members of John Brown's 
household with two exceptions — James Townsley 
and Theodore Weiner. Early in the afternoon of 
May 23d the raiders — bestowed in Townsley's 
farm- wagon, except Weiner, who rode a pony — 
left camp, amid a round of cheers, for Dutch 
Henry's Crossing. Toward sundown, and not far 
from his destination. Brown met James Blood, of 
Lawrence, with whom he became acquainted dur- 
ing the Wakarusa war. Brown talked for a few 
minutes. His habitual reserve relented into a 
nervous impetuosity of speech. The sack of Law- 
rence and denunciation of the peace-policy as cow- 
ardly, ignoble, ruinous were chief matters in his 
discourse. "We are on a secret mission — don't 
speak of meeting us," said the old man as the lit- 
tle company moved on. 



144 KANSAS. 

At night-fall Brown encamped in a gulched, 
wooded, ledgy tract about a mile north of Potta- 
watomie Creek, his point of destination. Towns- 
ley states, in his confessions, that it was not until 
the party had reached this lair that Brown fully 
disclosed to him the mission of the expedition. 
Up to this time he had enveloped it in vague and 
general phrases which might mean much or little. 
Now he threw aside disguise, and announced his 
purpose to sweep off all pro-slavery men up and 
down the Pottawatomie. In this work of death 
Townsley, familiar with the region and its popu- 
lation, should act as guide. Townsley demurred. 
This was an unexpected hitch which gave twenty- 
four hours more of life to five unsuspecting pro- 
slavery squatters on the Pottawatomie. During 
the interval of delay, according to Townsley's re- 
port, Brown's tongue was again loosed, and he 
talked at large. He said they must fall upon the 
enemy with such remorseless and destructive sur- 
prise as would overwhelm them with terror. Bor- 
der ruffians in the service of slavery were worthy 
of no more consideration than wolves that prey 
upon the farmer's sheepfold. Finally, he took 
refuge in the stronghold of predestination : "I 
have no choice. It has been decreed by Almighty 
God, ordained from eternity, that I should make 
an example of these men." Townsley, whose the- 
ological education had evidently been neglected, 
interrupted the discourse at one point : " If God 



DUTCH HENRTS CROSSING. 145 

is such a powerful man as you say, why does n't 
be attend to the business himself? " 

Saturday night, May 24th, the blow was struck, 
the example made. Brown and his men stole 
out of ambush and executed pro-slavery squat- 
ters whose names were pricked. A compromise 
was effected by abridging the death-list. This 
concession appears to have allayed Townsley's 
scruples. At the first cabin where the raiders 
halted and knocked there was no response. "It 
seemed to be empty," said Townsley, "though I 
thought I heard somebody cock a rifle inside." 
Three other cabins were visited, out of which five 
men were dragged to sudden death in the name 
of "the Northern army" — James P. Doyle and 
his sons William and Drury, Allan Wilkinson, 
and William Sherman. They were all mortally 
hacked and slashed with cutlasses, except the 
elder Doyle. Through his forehead, burned and 
blackened by the proximity of the pistol, there 
was a bullet-hole. 

It was a misfortune that Howard and Sherman, 
Republican members of the congressional investi- 
gating committee, should have declined to explore 
this ghastly affair, which has given rise to so much 
controversy. That refusal enabled the pro-slav- 
ery leaders to charge them with fear of facing the 
record of anti-slavery men in the territory. "It 
[the Pottawatomie massacre] revealed on the part 
of their friends such a picture of savage ferocity 

10 



146 KANSAS. 

that the committee for once bhished and stulti- 
fied themselves rather than receive the testimony 
as competent " — the testimony of Wilkinson's 
vpidow "lately tendered at Westport." There 
was, however, an ex parte investigation conducted 
by Mr. Oliver. When the widows, children, and 
neighbors of the slaughtered men gave evidence, 
he said in a speech in the House of Representa- 
tives — witnesses " whose tears in testifying were 
streaming down their cheeks," "who gave the 
greatest assurance that the words spoken came 
truthfully from the heart, because chastened by 
the hand of affliction and sorrow " — " my blood 
ran cold at the recital." Among those who have 
denounced the raid none have surpassed Andi-ew 
Johnson in bitter, unsparing, execrative words. 

" Innocent, unoffending men," he said in the Senate 
of the United States, " were taken out [of their cabins], 
and in the midnight hour, and in the forest, and on the 
roadside fell victims to the insatiable thirst of John 
Brown for blood. Then it was . . . that hell entered 
into his heart — not the iron into his soul. Then it was 
that he shrank from the dimensions of a human being 
into those of a reptile. Then it was, if not before, that 
he changed his character to a demon who had lost all 
the virtues of a man ! " 

In appraising the motives which underlay the 
slaughter at Dutch Henry's Crossing, we are shut 
up more or less completely to conjecture. John 
Brown's statements were sufficiently evasive to 



DUTCH HENRY'S CROSSING. 147 

deceive members of his own family and personal 
friends, who long denied that he led the foray, 
or that he was implicated in it otherwise than 
by shouldering responsibility after the event. 
Measured upon the scale of the times, the five 
squatters, upon whom he laid a tiger's paw, were 
not exceptionally bad men. Doyle and Wilkinson 
were of Northern extraction, and do not appear 
to have reached any evil eminence that shot above 
ordinary altitudes of border partisanship. Wil- 
liam Sherman may have been more noisy and less 
respectable, but the evidence fails to show that he 
had done anything worthy of assassination. That 
intelligence of alarming pro-slavery outbreaks on 
the Pottawatomie could not have been brought to 
camp by Williams, nor by anybody else, is evi- 
denced by the fact that the rifle companies, organ- 
ized and equipped for the defense of that particu- 
lar locality, so far from speeding homeward lin- 
gered at Palmyra for two days after John Brown's 
departure — lingered until they were dispersed by 
Lieutenant Church. Another circumstance is of 
the same import. May 27th squatters upon Pot- 
tawatomie Creek, " without distinction of party," 
held an indignation meeting and denounced the 
killing as " an outrage of the darkest and foulest 
nature," perpetrated by " midnight assassins un- 
known, who have taken five of our citizens at tho 
hour of midnight from their homes and families, 
and murdered and mangled them in the most aw- 



148 KANSAS. 

ful manner." They pledged themselves " to aid 
and assist in bringing these desperadoes to jus- 
tice." Members of the rifle companies who saw 
Townsley drive away from camp on Middle Creek 
with his farm-wagon full of armed men, escorted 
by Weiner, and who, doubtless, joined in the part- 
ing round of cheers, had a hand in this meeting 
for public and indignant protest. As an index of 
sentiment in the community, which the massacre 
purported to shield, it is decisive. If perils had 
brooded over it which invited and vindicated ex- 
treme measures of defensive violence, a unanimous 
repudiating mass-meeting would have been impos- 
sible. " It will take a great deal to justify night 
attacks and shooting men after drum-head courts- 
martial," said Thomas Hughes in a lecture at the 
Working Men's College, London, on "The Strug- 
gle for Kansas." 

Unquestionably rumors from the Pottawatomie 
wrought upon Brown, but yet more potent were 
the disheartening tidings from Lawrence. He 
thought the cause of freedom had been piloted 
through bad seamnnship of peace-policies into dan- 
gerous shallows. That was the burden of his talk 
in the accidental interview with James Blood, 
where motives of family or local defense appeared 
faintly, if at all. Habitually verging toward infat- 
uation on the subject of slavery, belonging to the 
class of men who talk on great themes — themes 
which move them like, the sound of a trumpet — 



DUTCH HENRY'S CROSSING. 149 

" in a tone perfectly level and without emphasis 
and without any exhibition of feeling," he was 
presumably pushed by the exigencies of the crisis 
into a condition of actual mania. The occasion 
called, in his overwrought judgment, for an un- 
forgetable example, at once a protest against pop- 
ular theories of non-resistance and a bloody lesson 
to enemies. Should the outrage lead to civil war, 
should it embroil the country in a conflict of arms, 
that would only hasten the day of proclaiming 
liberty to the captive. 

" Why move thy feet so slow to what is best 1 " 

The impersonal, missionary motive — remember- 
ing those in bonds as bound with them — flames 
like sunshine on spear-points where everything 
else is hideous and ghastly. To the long list of 
violences committed under worthy but misguided 
inspirations must be added the massacre at Dutch ' 
Henry's Crossing. Every great cause has ef- 
fected complete conquest of impressible and un- 
balanced disciples, thrown over them spells of 
victorious fascination, harnessed them to its ser- 
vice "with absolute capitulation of self, blinded 
them hopelessly to interests and methods other 
than their own, and reduced to a minimum in 
their estimate the sanctities and rights of those 
who ran counter to their fanaticism. 

Naturally the killing made a commotion among 
pi'o-slavery squatters and territorial ofl&cials in the 



150 KANSAS. 

vicinity of Dutch Henry's Crossing. " All is ex- 
citement here," was the burden of letter-writers 
who sent off appeals to Governor Shannon from 
Paola, a neighboring town, on the morning of the 
26th ; " court cannot go on. . . . Families are 
leaving for Missouri. . . . We can perhaps mus- 
ter to-day, including the Alabamians, who are 
now encamped on Bull Creek, about one hun- 
dred and fifty men." " These murders, it is sup- 
posed," wrote General W. A. Heiskell, of the ter- 
ritorial militia, " were committed by abolitionists 
of Osawatomie and Pottawatomie creeks on their 
return from Lawrence. How long shall these 
things continue ? How long shall our citizens, 
unarmed and defenseless, be exposed to worse 
than savage cruelty ? . . . We have here but few 
men, and they wholly unarmed. We shall gather 
together for our own defense as many men as we 
can ; we hope you will send us as many arms as 
possible ; and if, under the circumstances, you can 
do so, send as many men as you think may be nec- 
essary. General Barber is here. He has sent to 
Fort Scott for aid. We must organize such force 
as we can, but for God's sake send arms. . . . 
We hope to be able to identify some of the mur- 
derers, as Mr. [James] Harris, who was in their 
hands, was released, and will probably know some 
of them." Harris happened to be at the house 
of William Sherman on the night of May 24th, 
when, as he stated, October 23d, 1857, in his 



DUTCH HENRTS CROSSING. 151 

deposition before the Strickler Commission, which 
was appointed by the territorial legislature to 
audit claims for losses during the troubles, "an 
armed body of men, in command of the notorious 
Captain John Brown, ... by force and arms and 
with threats and menaces of violence and bodily 
harm, took and carried away from your petitioner 
one horse, saddle, bridle, and gun ; . . . your 
petitioner further showeth that, being repeatedly 
threatened by said Captain Brown and followers, 
and living in great fear of my life, I was forced 
by their menaces and threats to abandon the ter- 
ritory." Minerva Selby was also at Sherman's 
on the fatal evening. She testified that she saw 
Harris there with his horse, but went away be- 
fore the arrival of Brown's party. " Harris with 
his family came to my house. He said that he 
had been robbed at Sherman's the preceding 
night by Brown's men ; . . . that Sherman had 
been murdered the same night by Brown and 
his men ; . . . that ... he was threatened fre- 
quently, and was obliged to leave his home — 
the safety of himself and family requii-ed it." 
The Rev. Martin White testified in a similar 
strain : " I am acquainted with . . . Mr. Harris. 
Saw him a short time after William Sherman had 
been murdered. Know that the petitioner was 
greatly alarmed ; seemed to apprehend danger 
from the murderers of Sherman, as the petitioner 
was at the premises of Sherman when the act was 



152 KANSAS. 

committed. The petitioner expressed his fears of 
being killed to prevent his divulging the murder. 
Believe he vras in danger of being murdered. The 
safety of himself and family required him to leave 
his home." Judge Cato wrote from Paola May 
27th : " I shall do everything in my power to 
have the matter investigated, and thei'e seems to 
be a disposition on the part of the free-state men 
in Franklin [county] to aid in having the laws 
enforced. As soon as proper evidence can be pro- 
cured, warrants will be issued for the arrest of the 
parties suspected. . . . These murders were most 
foully committed in the night-time, by a gang of 
some twelve or fifteen persons, calling on and 
dragging from their houses defenseless and unsus- 
pecting citizens, and murdering, and, after mur- 
dering, mutilating their bodies in a very shocking 
manner." Governor Shannon promptly dispatched 
a military force to the Pottawatomie. " The re- 
spectability of the parties and the cruelties attend- 
ing these murders," he wrote President Pierce May 
31st, "have produced an extraordinary state of 
excitement in that portion of the territory which 
has heretofore remained comparatively quiet." 

Extra-judicial agencies for redressing the Pot- 
tawatomie outrages began to move at once. News- 
paper extras, with sensational details of the af- 
fair, set a Leavenworth mob upon Governor Rob- 
inson. Captain H. C. Pate, Kansas correspondent 
of "The Missouri Republican," who led "the 



BLACK JACK. 153 

Westport Sharpshooters " — a company recruited 
largely among the rowdies of Westport, Missouri, 
to assist in abating nuisances at Lawrence May 
21st — was still in the neighborhood of Franklin 
when the Pottawatomie massacre occurred. On 
receiving intelligence of it, he hastily broke camp 
for Osawatomie, to wreak vengeance upon the 
perpetrators. He scoured the country in no gen- 
tle fashion, but missed the main object of his mis- 
sion. Saturday, May 31st, Pate went into camp 
at Black Jack, three quarters of a mile west of 
the village, on the edge of the prairie. A line of 
wagons drawn up in front of the bivouac formed 
a straggling, intermittent breastwork, while the 
rear was protected by a wooded, water-rutted 
ravine. 

There was no lack of predatory energy in the 
border - ruffian camp. A squad of Pate's men 
looted Palmyra, a settlement of four or five fam- 
ilies, Saturday evening. They returned with some 
plunder and two prisoners. 

The easy success at Palmyra stimulated further 
depredations. Sunday, six of the band at Black 
Jack rode over to Prairie City, — a neighboring 
hamlet — in search of fun and booty. They antici- 
pated nothing more serious than a profitable frolic. 
But some circuit preacher had an appointment at 
Prairie City for that Lord's Day. To this service 
came people of the vicinity in considerable num- 
bers. Apprehensive that the order of service might 



1 54 KANSAS. 

suddenly change from spiritual to carnal, they 
brought along their guns. In the midst of wor- 
ship there was an alarm — " The Missourians are 
coming! " Never did religious exercises conclude 
more abruptly. Six horsemen, charging into town 
with rifles across their saddles, instantly absorbed 
the attention of the congregation. The troopers, 
surprised at the number of people in the minia- 
ture village, halted before they reached the cabin 
which served for a church. Two raiders, desper- 
ate characters if the recollection of their captors 
may be credited — one of them with blackened 
face and sporting chicken's feathers in his hat — 
were bagged. The remainder, though exposed to 
a random musketry, escaped. 

These marauding operations stimulated the lo- 
cal campaign against Pate. Old John Brown, 
hearing of his anxiety to meet him, started after 
the Missourian with twenty-eight men ; ten be- 
longing to his own company'-, and the remainder to 
Captain S. T. Shore's. " We did not meet them 
on that day " (Sunday), said John Brown in an 
account of the battle of Black Jack first printed 
in Sanborn's " Life and Letters." ..." We were 
out all night, but could find nothing of them until 
about six o'clock, when we prepared to attack them 
at once. . . . We got to within about a mile of their 
camp before being discovered by their scouts, and 
then moved at a brisk pace ; Captain Shore and 
men forming our left, and my company the right. 



BLACK JACK. 155 

When within about sixty rods of the enemy, Cap- 
tain Shore's men halted by mistake in a veiy ex- 
posed situation and continued the fire, both his 
men and the enemy being armed with Sharpe's 
rifles. My company had no long shooters. We 
(my company) did not fire a gun until we gained 
the rear of a bank, about fifteen or twenty rods 
to the right of the enemy, where we commenced 
and soon compelled them to hide in a ravine." 

There was a desultory fire for two or three hours, 
during which Pate's situation grew more and more 
critical. Half of his men had skulked away, 
and the assailants were slowly but surely closing 
in upon the remainder. Free-state reinforcements 
might appear at any moment. Pate finally sent 
out a flag of truce. Brown declined to negotiate 
with subordinates, and the commander of " the 
Westport Sharpshooters " appeared forthwith. " I 
approached," he said, " and made known the fact 
that I was acting under the order of the United 
States marshal, and was only in search of persons 
for whom writs of arrest had been issued." But 
talk of tliat sort had no more effect upon Brown 
than the iris above a cataract on the waters plung- 
ing below it. He would hear of nothing except 
unconditional surrender. Trivialities like flags of 
truce and writs of territorial marshals he uncere- 
moniously brushed aside. Fifteen minutes were 
modestly asked to consider the proposition for 
capitulation. " Brown refused," said Pate in " The 



156 KANSAS. 

Missouri Republican," " and I was taken prisoner 
under a flag of truce. ... I had no alternative 
but to submit or to run and be shot. ... I 
went to take Old Brown, and Old Brown took 
me. 

Brown captured twenty-three men — some of 
them residents of the neighborhood — and commis- 
sary supplies of considerable amount, all of which 
were conveyed to his camp on Middle Creek. He 
narrowly escaped failure in the expedition, as only 
a single round of ammunition remained when the 
flag of truce appeared. Just after the fight had 
closed free-state reinforcements arrived from neigh- 
boring towns. 

The capture of Pate was not the only exploit 
of Brown's company in the vicinity of Black Jack. 
At St. Bernard, five miles from camp, a successful 
pro-slavery trader had a miscellaneous store filled 
with dry goods, clothing, groceries, drugs, fire- 
arms, hardware, boots and shoes. A necessitous 
company of guerrillas could scarcely be expected 
to neglect so favorable an opportunity to supply 
their wants at the expense of a Southerner. Cer- 
tainly the company encamped on Middle Creek 
did nothing of the kind. About nightfall June 
3d — such is the drift of testimony before the 
Strickler Commission — " part of a company com- 
manded by one John Brown," " armed with 
Sharpe's rifles, pistols, bowie-knives, and other 
deadly weapons, came upon the premises and 



BLACK JACK. 157 

attacked and rushed into the said store " • — a 
sudden condition of affairs so warlike that the 
employees " were deterred, threatened, and over- 
powered by the desperadoes, . . . who demanded 
a surrender of the goods and chattels, . . . threat- 
ening immediate death and destruction should the 
slightest resistance be offered," Finding the prize 
richer than had been anticipated and their appli- 
ances of transportation inadequate, the gang re- 
turned in the morning and resumed operations. 
They evidently left nothing to be desired in point 
of thoroughness. A young woman, into whose 
private apartments the rascals forcibly intruded, 
and at whom they " presented several guns," 
though perhaps unfavorably circumstanced for dis- 
passionate criticism, gave her impressions concern- 
ing their personal appearance. " They were des- 
perate and vicious looking men," she said, . . . 
"more like barbarians than civilized beings." 

Black Jack was not the only disordering conse- 
quence swiftly following the 24th of May. The 
Missouri border rushed to arms. Whitfield, ter- 
ritorial delegate to Congress, put himself in the 
lead. Westport, Lexington, and Independence 
raised companies for the army of invasion, which 
gathered with celerity, was well equipped, and on 
the 3d of June reached Bull Creek, twelve miles 
east of Palmyra. It was planned that a junction 
should be formed with Pate, and then the consol- 
idated force would scourge every abolitionist from 



158 KANSAS. 

the country. This pretty campaign the disaster 
at Black Jack somewhat disconcerted. 

Free-state men also were astir. Their military 
companies, snuffing mischief in the air, concen- 
trated near Palmyra — detachments of Captain 
Samuel Walker's " Bloomington Rifles," of Cap- 
tain Joseph Cracklin's " Lawrence Stubbs," of 
Captain J. B. Abbott's " Blue Mound Infantry," 
of Captain McWhinney's " Wakarusa Boys," and 
of Captain S. T. Shore's "Prairie City Company" 
— amounting altogether to about one hundred 
and fifteen men. Brown lurked in the woods of 
Middle Creek, fully occupied with the care of his 
prisoners. June 6th Kansans and Missourians 
were facing each other with arms in their hands, 
and apparently on the eve of collision. 

Governor Shannon became alarmed, and roused 
himself into a vigorous activity. He published a 
proclamation June 4th commanding all armed and 
illegal organizations to disperse. Citizens " with- 
out regard to party names or distinctions " were 
assured of protection, and invaders warned to re- 
tire. The proclamation, though a little tardy, had 
the right ring. Colonel Sumner thought that if 
it "had been issued six months earlier and rig- 
idly maintained these difficulties would have been 
avoided." 

Fifty federal dragoons, with Colonel Sumner at 
their head, hurriedly left Lecompton June 5th to 
part the belligerents concentrating near Palmyra. 



BLACK JACK. 159 

" Any delay . . . will lead to fearful conse- 
quences," the governor urged. Deputy Marshal 
Fain, supplied, it was supposed, with a liberal as- 
sortment of warrants, accompanied the expedition. 
The colonel found a larger disturbance brewing 
at Palmyra than his imperfect knowledge had led 
him to suspect. The tone of his official report in- 
dicates that in his view the main business of the 
expedition was " to disperse a band of free-soilers, 
who were encamped near Prairie City ; this band 
had had a fight with the pro-slavery party, and 
had taken twenty-six prisoners." During the day 
Sumner reached the vicinity of Old John Brown's 
lair, from which his approach could be distinctly 
seen across the prairie. Unmistakably he in- 
tended to visit the camp, and after a hurried con- 
sultation it was thought prudent to send out 
a messenger with proposals for an interview. 
" What 's going on down there ? " Sumner asked, 
pointing toward the free-soil bivouac. " Captain 
John Brown has Pate and his men prisoners. Pie 
sent me to meet you and to inquire where an in- 
terview can be held." " Tell him he can see me 
right here." The messenger returned and made 
his report. " We must see Colonel Sumner apart 
from his men," suggested Captain Shore. Brown 
concurred, and the runner, though with some re- 
luctance, set out again. "Well, what is it now?" 
the colonel asked with evident impatience. The 
request of Brown and Shore was stated. " Tell 



160 KANSAS. 

them," he growled, "that I make no terms with 
lawless men — tell them that. Dragoons, form 
a company — march." The runner flew back to 
camp at a break-neck pace, and the horsemen fol- 
lowed on behind. Brown and Shore sallied forth 
to meet the not very welcome visitors. After 
some parleying Brown led the dragoons into camp. 
Colonel Sumner stated that his orders were to re- 
lease Pate, and to aid the officers in serving writs. 
Marshal Fain fumbled among his papers, but 
finally said he could find none for the apprehen- 
sion of anybody in the camp. It is reported that 
Sumner afterwards took Brown aside and told 
him that a warrant for his arrest had been is- 
sued, but that the marshal had inadvertently mis- 
laid it. 

A good deal of stir and bustle ensued in setting 
the prisoners at liberty, and in restoring to them 
as far as possible their effects. The mere hum- 
drum formality of regaining his freedom — the 
bare, unadorned act of escaping from Old Brown's 
lair with a whole skin — did not quite fill out 
Pate's idea of what belonged to the proprieties 
of the occasion. One thing was yet lacking — a 
speech from himself, extenuating any infelicities, 
and illuminating any obscurities that might vex 
his recent record. Mounting upon a log he began 
a speech, upon which, before it had fairly got under 
way, came sudden extinction — 
" As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind in a casement." 



BLACK JACK AND OSAWATOMIE. 161 

*' I don't want to hear a word out of you, sir," 
thundered Sumner — " not a word, sir. You have 
no business here. The governor told me so ! " 

While breaking up Brown's camp Sumner 
learned, with evident astonishment, " that two or 
three hundred of the pro-slavery party from Mis- 
souri and elsewhere were approaching," to whom 
he gave attention. " I found them halted," he 
reports, " at two miles distance (about two hun- 
dred and fifty strong), and to my great surprise I 
found Colonel Whitfield, the member of Congress, 
and General Coffee, of the militia, at their head. 
... I then requested General Coffee to assemble 
his people, and I read to them the president's dis- 
patch and the governor's proclamation." Whit- 
field and Coffee made fair promises, and " moved 
off," though Sumner did not feel assured they 
were not bent on mischief-making somewhere. 
He remained in the disquieted district until the 
22d of June, when he considered the work of 
pacification accomplished. Only a few freeboot- 
ers kept the field. " These fellows," he reported, 
" belong to both parties, and are taking advantage 
of the present political excitement to commit their 
own rascally acts." 

The Missourians retired sullenly across the bor- 
der. Their leisurely and circuitous path was 
marked by the customary excesses, including the 
dead bodies of two or three f ree-soilers. For a por- 
tion, at all events, of Whitfield's expedition the 
11 



162 KANSAS. 

line of return dipped southward through the odi- 
ous village of Osawatomie. So far the victims of 
Dutch Henry's Crossing had been feebly and im- 
perfectly avenged. To smite the town with which 
John Brown was most intimately associated, in 
default of larger game, would yield a qualified and 
secondary satisfaction. " The abolition hole " — 
containing sonae thirty buildings and a population 
of two hundred souls — was surprised and pillaged. 
The raiders expected to fire the town, but as fed- 
eral troops were near, and free-state rangers might 
be in close pursuit, nothing worse than plunder- 
ing happened. A final reckoning with Osawat- 
omie was deferred. The calamitous consequences 
of the night raid upon the Pottawatomie had not 
yet spent their fury. 



CHAPTER IX. 

PER ASPERA. 

The calamities of free -state men in Kansas 
were stepping-stones to final success. They moved 
Northern sentiment profoundly. Speakers fresh 
from the border addressed great public gatherings 
and inflamed the excitement by the adventurous, 
romantic, far-away interest that attached to them, 
by unmeasured denunciations of the slave power, 
by sensational narratives of the hardships, rob- 
beries, and murders that had befallen anti-slavery 
settlers in the territory. Pulpit, press, and con- 
vention caught up and reverberated their impas- 
sioned message. The legislatures of several North- 
ern States passed resolutions recognizing the serv- 
ices and sufferings of Kansas pioneers in the cause 
of liberty. "We have heard," said the legislature 
of Massachusetts, " the call for aid and sympa- 
thy which has come up . . . from the settlers of 
Kansas with the deepest solicitude ; . . . their 
sufferings have touched our hearts ; and the 
manly defense of their rights has won our admi- 
ration." 

In the autumn of 1856 two books appeared 



164 KANSAS. 

which stimulated and perpetuated public interest : 
" Kansas, Its Exterior and Interior Life," by 
Mrs. Sara T. L. Robinson — a brave, graphic, real- 
istic, clear-eyed narrative of border experiences, 
exhibiting their social, domestic, every-day phases 
as well as their turbulent, political constituents, 
and running through nine editions ; " The Con- 
quest of Kansas," by W. A. Phillips — a breezy, 
readable book, not wdthout sense of humor, but 
marred by inaccuracies and exaggerations. 

A fierce agitation flamed and roared like a prai- 
rie fire from Boston to the Northwest. But the 
movement did not spend itself in flame and smoke. 
Societies of semi-military cast, no less willing to 
furnish guns than groceries, sprang up as if by 
magic, and overshadowed the earlier, more pacific 
organizations. A national society, with auxilia- 
ries in almost every free state except Massachu- 
setts, which had a flourishing " State Kansas Com- 
mittee " of its own, got afoot and harvested not 
less than two hundred thousand dollars for Kansas 
purposes. The Massachusetts committee secured 
funds to the amount of eighty thousand dollars in 
addition to large supplies. Eager, cooperative ac- 
tivities woke on every side. " I know people," 
said Emerson in a speech at Cambridge, "who 
are making haste to reduce their expenses and 
pay their debts, not with a view to new accumula- 
tions, but in preparation to save and earn for the 
benefit of Kansas emigrants." 



PER ASPERA. 165 

" Thou hast great allies ; 
Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 
And love and Man's unconquerable mind." 

The volume of anti- slavery migration toward 
the territory swelled like mountain streams after 
heavy showers. A constiint movement thither- 
ward had been in progress through the spring and 
early summer. Among the companies who ar- 
rived during that period were the widely-heralded 
" rifle Christians " from New Haven, Connecticut 
— seventy-nine resolute men, under the conduct 
of C. B. Lines, armed with bibles and Sharpe's 
carbines. " We gratefully accept the bibles," said 
tlie leader of the colony, " as the only sure foun- 
dation on which to erect free institutions. . . . 
We . . . accept the weapons also, and, like our 
fathers, we go with the bible to indicate the 
peaceful nature of our mission and the hai'mless 
character of our company, and a weapon to teach 
those who may be disposed to molest us (if any 
such there be) that while we determine to do that 
which is right we will not submit tamely to that 
whjch is wrong." " We will not forget you," 
said Henry Ward Beecher, prominent in securing 
for the colony an outfitting of guns. " Every 
morning breeze shall catch the blessings of our 
prayers and roll them westward to your prairie 
home." 

Pro-slavery leaders on the border viewed with 
alarm these unwonted exhibitions of Northern en- 



166 KANSAS. 

ergy and anger. Rumors of impending invasions 
— of populous, grimy, fanatic abolitionist hordes, 
with hate in their hearts and arms in their hands, 
hurrying toward the frontier — flew thick and 
fast. Steps must be taken at once to meet the 
new and multiplying perils. Unless the great in- 
flowing current of Northern life could be checked, 
all hope of Southern supremacy in Kansas must 
be at once and forever abandoned. 

Atchison and his associates attacked the prob- 
lem before them with no half-way policy. They 
resolved to police the great national highway of 
the Missouri River against all traffic inimical to 
the interests of slavery. Steamers were over- 
hauled, free-state consignments of merchandise 
seized, Kansas ward travelers unable to give satis- 
factory accounts of themselves arrested and sent 
down the river. A. A. Lawrence and Dr. Samuel 
Cabot, of Boston, shipped for the territory four 
thousand dollars' worth of Sharpe's rifles, which 
happened to be in transitu when the embargo 
began to stiffen. These guns the volunteer river 
commissioners seized. The Boston gentlemen were 
naturally anxious to recover the arms, but felt a 
little awkward and embarrassed in making the ef- 
fort. " If we were not officers of the Emigrant 
Aid Company," Lawrence wrote, " (which takes 
no part in such matters . . . ) we could get them 
by suit ; but whether we can do it by proxy re- 
mains to be seen." 



PER ASPERA. 167 

The first considerable party — seventy-five in 
number — to which the revised code of inter-state 
traffic was applied came from Chicago. They 
were recruited at an immense mass-meeting in 
that city May 31st, which Lane, who was a stump 
orator of remarkable power, addressed with great 
effect. The Chicago immigrants met with no 
special annoyance until they reached Lexington, 
where they were subjected to a preliminary inves- 
tigation and lost their Sharpe's rifles. They then 
proceeded to Leavenworth, where a second exami- 
nation took place, which resulted in the capture 
of " about two bushels of revolvers, pistols, and 
bowie-knives." Finally, they were sent back 
down the river, put ashore near Alton, Illinois, in 
a drenching rain-storm, and left to shift for them- 
selves. 

Overland immigrants fared no better when they 
touched the soil of Missouri, but encountered the 
same belligerent policy that threw its obstruc- 
tions across the river. This policy, it should be 
remarked, commanded general though not univer- 
sal credit among the valiant friends of law and 
order. It was too flat and insipid for some of the 
newspaper editors. "We are of the opinion,'* 
said " The Squatter Sovereign," " [that] if the 
citizens of Leavenworth . . , would hang one or 
two boat-loads of abolitionists it would do more 
towards establishing peace in Kansas than all the 
speeches that have been delivered in Congress 



168 KANSAS. 

during the present session. Let the experiment 
be tried ! " 

The Missourians did not succeed in their efforts 
at obstruction. They could no more balk the 
great Northern movement toward Kansas than 
they could check the Missouri with the palm of 
the hand. Perplexity, agitation, experiment, 
shifting of routes, they compassed, and that was 
all. Various plans for breaking the embargo on 
the Missouri River were rife in Eastern anti-slav- 
ery circles, such as the purchase of an armed ves- 
sel to cruise upon its forbidden waters ; the as- 
sembling of friendly legislatures with a vague, 
undefined purpose of state interference ; a protest 
of state executives against violations of consti- 
tutional rights of travel prevalent in Missouri, 
which Mr. Thaddeus Hyatt volunteered to carry 
to every Northern governor for his signature- 
None of these projects ever reached the stage 
of practical experiment. The crisis was hardly 
serious enough to call for heroic remedies. Mis- 
souri did not command all accessible routes to 
Kansas. It were easy to flank the blockade by 
opening communications through Iowa and Ne- 
braska. This measure was successfully accom- 
plished through the energy of the " Kansas State 
Central Committee," appointed by the Topeka 
miiss-convention. Toward the close of July the 
Chicago emigrants, together with fresh companies 
from Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and 



PER ASPERA. 169 

Wisconsin — reaching an aggregate of three hun- 
dred and ninety-six persons — were encamped near 
Nebraska City en route for Kansas. This company 
had been loudly noised abroad as Lane's Northern 
army. Governor Shannon, in no little alarm, 
urged General P. F. Smith, who succeeded Colonel 
Sumner in command of the department, " to take 
the field with the whole disposable force in the 
territory," to keep this ill-reputed horde at bay, 
which he declined to do on the ground that the 
governor's information was untrustworthy. July 
29th Dr. S. G. Howe and Thaddeus Hyatt, repre- 
sentatives of the National Kansas Committee, sent 
out to investigate matters, reached the Nebraska 
camp. They found many of the immigrants in 
a forlorn condition — ragged, almost penniless, 
poorly supplied with even the scanty furniture 
of a camper's outfit. Leadership had fallen into 
Lane's hands, and the whole expedition became 
accredited to him, though he was neither directly 
nor indirectly concerned in raising more than a 
fourth part of it. The committee demanded that 
his connection with it should be completely sev- 
ered on penalty of withholding further supplies. 
Considerations which led to this summary step 
were the fact that papers had been made out for 
Lane's arrest — a circumstance which might lead 
to complications ; that in an emergency his dis- 
cretion and self-command could not be trusted. 
These considerations, the committee reported, 



170 KANSAS. 

" conspired to create a well-grounded apprehen- 
sion in our minds that by some hasty and ill-timed 
splurge he would defeat the object of the expedi- 
tion if suffered to remain even in otherwise de- 
sirable proximity." Lane took the decision much 
to heart. " If the people of Kansas don't want 
me," he said, " I '11 cut my throat to-day." But 
he sullenly yielded, set off toward the territory 
with Old John Brown, Captain Samuel Walker, 
and three or four others, outrode his escort, and 
reached Lawrence alone August 11th, disguised 
as Captain Jo Cook. He tarried long enough in 
Topeka to write the free-state prisoners at Le- 
compton a note, offering to attack the federal sol- 
diers who guarded them if they could not other- 
wise escape. The so-called Northern army pursued 
its way leisurely into the territory and founded 
along the line of march two towns — Plymouth 
and Holton. Members of the expedition, who 
did not tarry for these enterprises, reached Topeka 
on the 13th of August. 

Other overland parties followed. Late in Sep- 
tember James Redpath, with one hundred and 
thirty men, appeared on the northern boundary. 
A martial, non-agricultural reputation preceded 
this company. Colonel J. E. Johnston with four 
companies of dragoons marched toward the Ne- 
braska line to insure it a fitting reception, but 
after applying suitable tests he pronounced the 
travelers to be " real immigrants." 



PER ASP ERA. 171 

The Redpath scare had no sooner abated than 
another still more violent succeeded. Reports 
reached Lecompton that six or seven hundred 
men, with three pieces of artillery, were on the 
point of crossing the Nebraska line. Colonel P. 
St. George Cooke harried forward reinforcements, 
increasing the number of federal troops along the 
frontier to five hundred strong. One heavy dis- 
appointment befell the colonel daring the north- 
ward expedition. " I just missed the arrest of 
the notorious Osawatomie outlaw, Brown," he re- 
ported October 7th. "The night before, having 
ascertained that after dark he had stopped for 
the night at a house six miles from the camp, 
I sent a party, who found at twelve o'clock he had 
gone." Colonel Cooke was more successful in 
catching the latest overland immigrants, who were 
brought to a halt near the Nebraska line on the 
morning of October 10th. The excess of men in 
the company excited suspicion, as the two hun- 
dred and twenty-three persons reported by the 
officer of the day included only " five women of 
marriageable age." " I do not see many spin- 
ning-wheels sticking out of the wagons," said 
Colonel Cooke as he walked about them. Indeed, 
they contained " no visible furniture, agricultural 
implements, or mechanical tools," but abounded in 
" all the requisite articles for camping and cam- 
paigning purposes." Marshal Preston, in spite 
of much protesting, searched the wagons and un- 



172 KANSAS. 

earthed a remarkaole assortment of farming im- 
plements — Hall's muskets, Sliarpe's carbines, re- 
volvers, sabres, bayonets, fixed ammunition, kegs 
of powder, and dragoon saddles. " It was raining 
on the day of arrest," reported Marshal Preston, 
" which subjected us all to a drenching. It was 
to be regretted, but could not be prevented." The 
grumbling expedition was escorted to Topeka, 
where the conductors of it, S. W. Eldridge, S. C. 
Pomeroy, and others, laid their grievances be- 
fore the governor, resented the meddlesome inter- 
ference of " one Preston, deputy United States 
marshal," and disavowed with much posturing of 
injured innocence every warlike purpose. These 
flower-soft, unmilitary gentlemen forgot to inform 
the governor, to whom the intelligence would have 
been of interest, that the bulk of their formidable 
military munitions had been obtained from the 
Iowa state arsenal; that the authorities allowed 
Robert Morrow to help himself to whatever it 
contained on the not very onerous condition that 
he would manage the operation discreetly ; that 
Morrow seized at night three wagonloads of guns 
and ammunition, and added them to the resources 
of immigrants who were lustily protesting, " Our 
mission to this territory is entirely peaceful." 
They escaped with no severer penalties than a 
lecture on the rules and maxims of behavior ap- 
propriate for new-come Kansaus. 

When they began to comprehend in some meas- 



PER ASP ERA. 173 

ure the extent and intensity of anti-slavery senti- 
ment moving among the Northern States ; when 
they saw great tides of hostile immigration pour- 
ing around their ineffectual barriers into Kansas — 
a spectacle tending to cloud the hopes of the most 
confident and optimistic — pro-slavery leaders be- 
gan to question the wisdom of that insolent and 
contemptuous confidence which had thus far ruled 
their councils. They revised their tactics so far 
as even to catch a lesson from their enemies, and 
attempted, though with the awkwardness of nov- 
ices and of pupils to some other manner born, the 
effective guise of martyrs. Atchison, B. F. String- 
fellow, Buford, and others published an address, 
June 21st, setting forth pathetically and volumi- 
nously the calamities that were upon them : — 

" Kansas they [the abolitionists] justly regard as the 
mere outpost in the war now being waged between 
the antagonistic civilizations of the North and South, 
and, winning this great outpost and standpoint, they 
rightly think their march will be open to an easy con- 
quest of the whole field. Hence the extraordinary 
naeans the abolition party has adopted to flood Kansas 
with the most fanatical and lawless portion of North- 
ern society, and hence the large sums of money . . . 
expended to surround . . . Missourians with obnoxious 
and dangerous neighbors. On the other hand, the pro- 
slavery element of the law and order party in Kansas, 
looking- to the Bible finds slavery ordained of God. 
. . . Slavery is the African's normal and proper state. 



174 KANSAS. 

. . . We believe it a trust and guardianship given as 
of God for the good of both races. . . . This is . . . 
a great social and political question of races, ... a 
question whether we shall sink to the level of the 
freed African and take him to the embrace of social 
and political equality and fraternity ; for such is the 
natural end of abolition progress. . . . That man or 
state is deceived that fondly trusts these fanatics may 
stop at Kansas. . . . The most convincing proof . . . 
of this was recently given before the congressional in- 
vestigating committee. Judge Matthew Walker . . , 
testified . . . that before the abolitionists selected Law- 
rence as their centre of operations their leader, Gov- 
ernor Robinson, attempted to get a foothold for them in 
the Wyandotte reserve. . . . Robinson, finding it neces- 
sary to communicate their plans and objects, divulged to 
Walker (whom he then supposed to be a sympathizer) 
that the abolitionists were determined on winning Kan- 
sas at any cost ; that then, having Missouri surrounded 
on three sides, they would begin their assaults on her, 
and as fast as one state gave way attack another, until 
the whole South was abolitionized. . . . We are confi- 
dent that . . . the abolition party was truly represented 
by Robinson, who has always been their chief man and 
acknowledged leader in Kansas. ... It was proved be- 
fore the investigating committee that the abolition party 
had traveling agents in the territory whose duty it was 
to gather up, exaggerate, and report for publication ru- 
mors to the prejudice of the law and order party. . . . 
In the present imperiled state of your civilization, if 
we do not maintain this outpost we cannot long main- 
tain the citadel. Then rally to the rescue." 



PER A8PERA. 175 

The " Appeal " was printed in " De Bow's Re- 
view " for August, 1856, and is much soberer, less 
confident in tone, than an article which appeared 
two months earlier in the same magazine under 
the title " Kansas a Slave State." 

" Slaves will now yield a greater profit in Kansas," 
said the writer, " either to hire out or cultivate the soil, 
than any other place. . . . Those who have brought 
their slaves here are reaping a rich reward, . . . and 
feel as secure in their property here as in Kentucky or 
Missouri. . . . Why it is that more of our friends in 
the old states have not brought their slaves with them 
we are at a loss to divine, unless the falsehoods and 
threats of the abolitionists have frightened them. . . . 
Should Kansas be made a slave state ? We say that 
location, climate, soil, productions, value of slave labor 
the good of the master and slave — all conspire and cry 
aloud that it should be. . . . The squatters, too, have 
already said three successive times, at the polls, that 
Kansas should be a slave state. But if all this is not 
enough, then we say, without fear of successful contra- 
diction, that Kansas must be a slave state or the Union 
will be dissolved. ... If Kansas is not made a slave 
state, it requires no sage to foretell that . . . there will 
never be another slave state. . . . Can Kansas be made 
a slave state ? Thus far the pro-slavery party has tri- 
umphed in Kansas in spite of the abolitionists and 
their Emigrant Aid Societies. . . . We have peaceably 
whipped them at the polls and forced them to beg for 
quarter in the field, and proven to the world that truth 
and justice are on our side. . . . The stake is surely 



176 KANSAS. 

worth a struggle ; and if not won by the South, God 
alone can foresee the evils that are to follow. . . . Will 
the South come to the rescue and make Kansas a slave 
state ? We are sure she will. We know her people, 
and when once aroused . . . they will fly to the rescue 
of their friends in Kansas, where all the combined 
forces of abolitionism will quail and skulk back to the 
dark sinks and hiding-places from which they came by 
the assistance of the aid societies. Such creatures can- 
not stand before the forces of honest freemen. . . . Kan- 
sas should, can, and will be a slave state." 

These papers and others which were issued 
sent ■ a spasm of excitement through the South, 
but received no such response of partisan immi- 
gration as streamed into Kansas from the North. 

With the sack of Lawrence, the dispersion of 
the Topeka legislature, and the flight or capture of 
prominent free-state leaders, the territory plunged 
into chaos. So far from befriending anti-slavery 
interests, the Pottawatomie massacre at once fo- 
mented and embittered the struggle. A period of 
lawlessness and marauding now set in that left 
stains on both parties as inevitably as the snail 
slimes its track. Which faction surpassed the other 
in misdeeds it would be hard to say. Free- state 
men seized the opportunity to rid the territory of 
obnoxious persons. The experiences of Rev. Mar- 
tin White, for instance, were far from griefless. 
His troubles dated back to a public meeting at 
Osawatomie April 16th, 1856, which passed resolu- 



PER ASP ERA. 177 

tions against the payment of taxes levied by the 
territorial legislature. 

In the course of the discussion he crossed swords 
with Old John Brown. White was a furious, 
unmeasured partisan, and made himself so un- 
popular that on the night of August 13th free- 
state men assailed his cabin. " I was frequently 
menaced and threatened with certain and imme- 
diate destruction," he testified before the Strickler 
Commission October 23d, 1857, " and was once 
attacked in my dwelling by a body of armed 
men, who were repulsed and driven away after a 
contest of half an hour " — retiring with a booty 
of seven horses. " A body of armed men com- 
manded by [J. C] Holmes came to my premises," 
said one of White's sons. ..." They took what 
they wanted, and inquired how many men were at 
my father's, saying that when they got old Martin 
White and killed him they would have all the 
pro-slavery men in the neighborhood." Such was 
the temper exhibited by " the outlaws and follow- 
ers of Lane and Brown " that on the 14th of Au- 
gust the Rev. Martin White fled precipitately to 
Missouri. " In consequence of their manifest de- 
termination to take my life," he said, " I was 
forced to beat a hasty retreat from the territory." 

The pro-slavery party had one great advantage: 
the most practicable avenues of communication 
and traffic were in their possession. They in- 
fested the country adjacent to Lawrence and To- 

12 



178 KANSAS. 

peka, so that these towns might be loosely consid- 
ered in a state of siege. No doubt scarcity of 
provisions in some degree stimulated the maraud- 
ing habit, but it had little need of artificial culti- 
vation. 

Topeka felt the pressure of the blockade much 
less than Lawrence, yet it was the centre of a pros- 
perous series of maraudings upon the surrounding 
country. So great was the enterprise and success 
in what one of the victims called " the roguing 
business " that few pro-slavery men of the neigh- 
borhood escaped spoliation. Free-state depreda- 
tors, in larger or smaller gangs, scoured the re- 
gion, filling the air with profanity, intimidating 
pro-slavery settlers, shooting at those who were 
not sufficiently docile, and plundering right and 
left. A curious observer has chronicled the con- 
tents of a single foray-wagon : green corn in the 
ear, surmounted by a cooking-stove, a crib-cradle, 
a dining-table, clothing, bedding, and a great va- 
riety of miscellaneous articles. Tecumseh in par- 
ticular, a town just east of Topeka, was visited by 
" robberies, plunderings, and pilferings." A wit- 
ness, who testified before the Strickler Commis- 
sion, happened to be in Topeka at the height of 
the freebooting season, and " saw a company of 
men and teams leave tovni and go in the direc- 
tion of Tecumseh " for the indefinite purpose of 
obtaining provisions. Just after the raiding of 
that village, again in Topeka, " I saw quite a large 



PER ASPERA. 179 

amount of goods, of various kinds, being divided 
out among the crowd present, ... I was invited 
among others to come up and take part, and 
finally did select a broom and meal sieve, thinking 
that should I ever find the proper owners . . . 
I would pay them." This conscientious mortal 
actually carried out his purpose, and paid the Te- 
cumseh shop-keeper — an event without parallel 
in the territorial annals. 

The pro-slavery beleaguerment of Lawrence 
assumed a more serious aspect. In the vicinity 
several block-houses, well situated as points of 
rendezvous for operations against the town, had 
been fortified and garrisoned. There was one of 
these semi-forts at Franklin ; another on Wash- 
ington Creek, called Fort Saunders ; another near 
Lecompton, known as Fort Titus. These " nests 
of land-pirates " succeeded in cutting off supplies 
to such an extent that food became scarce at 
Lawrence. " The boys lived for days on ground 
oats," said Captain J. B. Abbott, of the Blue 
Mound Infantry — " on oatmeal unbolted and un- 
sifted. It was like eating hay." S. W. Eldridge 
gave the result of special inquiries in the matter 
of food-supplies before the second Board of Com- 
missioners, appointed by the territorial legislature 
in 1859 to reopen the matter of claims for losses 
in the border troubles. 

" On the 14th of August, 1856," he said, " or there- 
abouts, I was delegated to ascertain the quantity of sup- 



180 KANSAS. 

plies in the town. . . . The soldiers and citizens . . . 
assembled in Lawrence were reduced to the lowest point 
of sustenance : many of them for weeks together had 
nothing to subsist on but green corn, squashes, water- 
melons, and other vegetables ; hundreds had no flour, 
meal, or meat of any kind for days and days together. 
Sickness prevailed among those subjected to such a diet. 
In Lawrence a large proportion of all here assembled 
were reduced to straits, and as a matter of necessity 
and self-preservation . . . the surrounding country as 
well as the city itself had to furnish such means of 
sustenance as the wants of the hungry and the neces- 
sities of the sick demanded. On the day mentioned I 
went to every store in town and every supposed depot 
to ascertain what amount of flour or meal was on hand, 
exclusive of such limited supplies as might be in dwell- 
ing-houses for temporary family use ; after a thorough 
search and examination made for the purpose of ascer- 
taining the condition of the town and to calculate how 
long it could sustain the existing pressure, I found there 
were but fourteen sacks of flour — I repeat it, buly four- 
teen sacks of flour in town that could have been bouglit 
for public or private use ; could find no meal, bacon, or 
beef of any consequence ; stocks were exhausted." 

Offensive operations were first directed against 
Franklin. On the night of June 4th a handful of 
men from Lawrence crept into that village with 
the stealth of Indians, began a brisk rifle-prac- 
tice in the darkness, Avhich accomplished nothing 
beyond killing one of the defenders and wounding 
several. With the approach of day the raiders 



PER ASPERA. 181 

beat a successful retreat. But there was a second, 
a more elaborate and effectual attack. Eighty-one 
men, accompanied by Lane, fresh from Nebraska, 
to a point sufficiently near Franklin for agreeable 
spectatorship, sallied forth, August 13th, after 
dark, to the attack. The block-house was flanked 
on either side by a log-cabin ; one serving as a 
post-office, the other as a hotel. Under cover of 
night the slender army of investment got into po- 
sition, and summoned the entire compound struc- 
ture to surrender. The proposition was indig- 
nantly declined. Thereupon followed three hours 
of musketry — to no purpose beyond the hurting 
of a few men. Tiring of the waste of ammuni- 
tion, the assailants hit upon the expedient of ig- 
niting a load of hay and wheeling it against the 
house of the Franklin postmaster, " with whom," 
as pro-slavery writers put it, " a party of Southern 
men were boarding." The fiery battering-ram 
succeeded far better than Sharpe's rifles. " When 
the flames burst forth," an eyewitness relates, 
" the poltroons cried lustily for quarter." Loop- 
holes became silent, and on an entrance being 
effected a brass field-piece and a few muskets were 
found, but no " boarders." Some of the assailants 
thought that a postmaster who kept the sort of 
" boarders " found in Franklin should be made an 
example of. " Oh, don't shoot my husband — don't 
shoot him," pleaded his wife. " He deserves to 
die ; he 's a great villain," somebody blurted out. 



182 KANSAS. 

" I know it," was the quick retort, " and tliat 's 
just the reason why I don't want him shot." 

Two days aftei'wards there was a reconnais- 
sance upon Fort Saunders, the intrenched " den of 
thieves " on Washington Creek. The murder of 
Major D. S. Hoyt by members of the gang was 
the immediate occasion of the expedition. Four 
hundred men, with the cannon captured at Frank- 
hn, marched against the post, but the garrison fled 
on their approach. The block-house stood near a 
wooded gulch. Finding it deserted, Lane, who 
was nominally in command, shouted, " The devils 
are in the ravine — charge." Into the ravine some 
of the troopers dashed, but found nobody there. 

After this easy success the expedition went into 
camp on Rock Creek. For reasons which he did 
not take the trouble to explain. Lane, with half a 
dozen companions, set out at once for Nebraska, 
though less than a week had elapsed since his ar- 
rival from the North. On his departure the com- 
mand devolved upon Captain Samuel Walker. 
There was considerable discussion as to what more, 
if anything, should be done. Captain Walker ad- 
vised the expedition to disband. A part of the 
men followed his suggestion and started for Law- 
rence, while he himself went to the cabin of a 
friend some miles in the direction of Lecompton. 
In the evening rumors came to the men who re- 
mained on Rock Creek — in the mood of further 
campaigning — that free -state prisoners at Le- 



PER ASPERA. 183 

compton were in peril of the gibbet. They re- 
solved to attempt a rescue, and sent a runner to 
notify the men who were returning to Lawrence. 
Nothing of importance occurred until the expedi- 
tion reached a point within six or eight miles of 
Lecoiapton, when the advanced guard encountered 
Colonel Titus and his band, who were given to the 
habit of night-raids. A skirmish took place, which 
frustrated the plan for surprising Lecompton. 
Captain Walker, who had been summoned, per-; 
suaded the expedition out of attempting anything 
more, and went to his own cabin, which was in 
the neighborhood, for what little of the night re- 
mained. The Topeka, Lecompton, and Lawrence 
stage line passed his door. In the morning the 
coach stopped, and the driver, taking Walker 
aside, said, " I 've got Titus' wife and two children 
in the stage. If you want to get the d — d scoun- 
drel, now is your time." Colonel Titus, who had 
distinguished himself by great activity in harrying 
free-state people, was probably the most obnox- 
ious border ruffian in the territory. Walker was 
personally anxious to catch him, and the halted 
expedition quickly broke camp. Fifty horsemen 
dashed on in three divisions to surround the stout 
log-cabin which went by the name of Fort Titus, 
and cut off communications with Lecompton, while 
the infantry made what speed they might. Fed- 
eral troops were plainly in sight, but Major John 
Sedgwick privately hinted to Walker a few days 



184 KA^AS. 

before that if he wished to nab Titus, and would 
make quick work of it, his drugoons might not be 
able to reach the block-house in time to interfere. 
Walker's horsemen got in position and opened fire 
with Sharpe's carbines. Titus replied spiritedly, 
killed one of the assailants, and wounded others. 
E,ifle-baUs buried themselves harmlessly in the 
walls of the cabin, but the arrival of footmen 
with a six-pound gun put a new face upon affairs. 
The cannonade was plainly audible in the federal 
camp scarcely a mile distant. Mrs. Robinson says 
in her " Kansas " that a stray shot whizzed past 
the tent where the free-state prisoners were con- 
fined. After a brief bombardment a white flag 
appeared, and the whole garrison of seventeen 
men capitulated. Colonel Titus presented a sorry 
sight as he emerged from his battered domicile — 
coatless, covered with blood, wounded in the hand, 
face, and shoulder. The assailants fully purposed 
to kill Titus if they caught him — to such an in- 
tensity had the bitterness against him mounted. 

" But the cuss," said Captain Walker to the writer, 
"got me in the right place when he surrendered. He 
saw the devil was to pay, and made a personal appeal to 
me. ' You have children,' he pleaded, ' and so have I. 
For God's sake save my life.' Somehow I could n't re- 
sist. We had n't been on good terms at all. Not long 
before the rascal had sent handbills all about offering 
a reward of five hundred dollars for my head ' off or on 
my shoulders.' I noticed one of them plastered upon 



PER ASPERA. 185 

the side of his cabin while he was talking to me. The' 
boys swore they would kill him. One of them was so 
obstreperous that 1 had to knock him down before he 
would be quiet. At last I got mad and said, ' There 
Titus sits. If any one of you is brute enough to shoot 
him, shoot.' Not a man raised his gun." 

Two inmates of Fort Titus were killed, and two 
wounded. Among the free-state men the casual- 
ties were one killed and six wounded. Titus was 
taken to Lawrence, where a fresh rage to disj^atch 
him broke out, but wiser counsels prevailed, and 
the mob was baffled. 

Sunday, August 17th, Governor Shannon, ac- 
companied by Major Sedgwick and Dr. Aristides 
Rodrigue, postmaster at Lecompton, rode to Law- 
rence in the interest of peace-making. Then oc- 
curred an unwonted spectacle. After negotia- 
tions consuming almost tlie entire day a treaty of 
peace was consummated, involving an exchange of 
prisoners and other acts customary only among 
recognized belligerents standing upon an equal 
footing; the high contracting parties being on the 
one hand the federal government in the person of 
Governor Shannon, and on the other a minority 
of the sub-committee chosen out of the larger 
committee appointed at the miscellaneous Topeka 
convention July 4th — Colonel James Blood and 
William Hutchinson, correspondent of the " New 
York Times." In this transaction free-state au- 
dacity reached the high-water mark of the Waka- 



186 KANSAS. 

rusa war treaty. The United States stipulated to 
return the cannon captured by Sheriff Jones at 
Lawrence May 21st, to liberate five or six men 
arrested for participation in the attack on Frank- 
lin, while the minority of the sub-committee 
asfreed to release Titus and his men. 

When the treaty had been arranged, Governor 
Shannon attempted to address a street-mob, com- 
posed of recent immigrants from Chicago and else- 
where rather than of residents of Lawrence. There 
was still another outbreak of furor for shooting 
Titus. Major Sedgwick, who was not given to 
alarms nor exaggerations, described the excite- 
ment as " almost uncontrollable." When Gover- 
nor Shannon began to speak a tremendous yell 
went up from the spectators, and revolvers were 
pulled out to shoot him. Walker leaped upon a 
horse, and, drawing his pistols, dashed into the 
street, shouting, " The first man who insults the 
governor does it over my dead body ! He shan't 
be insulted. Boys, I 'm with you, but he shan't 
be insulted ! " Instant silence followed. Finally 
some one said, "• We '11 hear him as Shannon, but 
not as governor ! " The speech then went on. 

When Governor Shannon returned to Lecomp- 
ton he assuredly had occasion for writing the ner- 
vous letter which he sent off at once to the de- 
partment commander : " This place is in a most 
dangerous and critical situation. . . . We are 
threatened with utter extermination by a large 



PER ASPERA. 187 

body of free-state men. ... I have just returned 
from Lawrence, where I have been this day with 
the view of procuring the release of nineteen pris- 
oners that were taken. I saw in that place at 
least eight hundred men who manifested a fixed 
purpose to destroy this town. . . . The women 
and children have been mostly sent across the 
river, and there is a general panic among the 
people." 

With the treaty at Lawrence, Governor Shan- 
non's official career substantially closed. " I am 
unwilling to perform the duties of governor of this 
territory any longer," he wrote President Pierce 
August 18th. " You will therefore consider my 
official connection with this territory at an end." 
He gave mortal offense to the pro-slavery leaders 
in the latter days of his administration by declin- 
ing to be a mere sounding-board for their policies. 
Like Reeder he left the territory in fear for his 
life. His success had scarcely been greater than 
that of his predecessor. " Govern the Kansas of 
1855 and '56," he once exclaimed in later years, 
when he had become a resident of Lawrence and 
territorial unpopularity had modulated into uni- 
versal respect, — " you might as well have at- 
tempted to govern the devil in hell ! " 

It must not be supposed that pro-slavery people 
were idle during this interval of freshened free- 
state activity. Though scarcely taking the lead, 
they accomplished considerable marauding, which, 



188 KANSAS. 

as usual, consisted in highway robbery and the 

pillage of cabins interspaced with an occasional 

murder. In the practical conduct of such matters 

there is wearisome sameness of method and detail, 

like 

" A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame." 

At Leavenworth there belched forth a perfect 
chaos of pro-slavery outrages, which held on into 
the early days of September — a Missouri ruffian 
making and winning a bet of six dollars against a 
pair of boots that he would scalp an abolitionist 
within two hours ; William Phillips, the lawyer 
who fared roughly at the hands of a mob some 
months before, assassinated, 

" With twenty trenched gashes on his head, 
The least a death to nature," 

one hundred and fifty men, women, and children 
driven upon river-steamers, leaving all their ef- 
fects behind as spoils for Captain Emory's eight 
hundred pro-slavery regulators, who swore they 
would expel every abolitionist from the region. 

But the larger Missouri activities awoke once 
more. August 16th, the day when Fort Titus was 
destroyed, Atchison and the pro-slavery junta, in 
an address to the public, announced the opening 
of civil war, and urged all friends of law and order 
" who are not prepared to see their friends butch- 
ered, to be themselves driven from their homes, to 
rally instantly to the rescue." The border roused 
by this call, which pro-slavery newspapers caught 



PER ASPERA. 189 

up with various and inflammatory exaggerations, 
again flew to arms. But the swelling hordes of 
armed men paused on the Missouri side of the line. 
Governor Shannon, who had not forgotten his ex- 
periences with the militia in the Wakarusa war, 
declined to give them any legal pretext for cross- 
ing it. On the 21st of August Secretary Woodson 
succeeded him as acting governor, and the halted 
but now jubilant Missourians prepared to advance. 
For a third time their ideal executive was in 
power. " If Mr. Atchison and his party had had 
the direction of affairs," reported General P. F. 
Smith, who succeeded Colonel Sumner in com- 
mand of the department, " they could not have 
ordered them more to suit his purpose." Wood- 
son bestirred himself to issue a proclamation, 
which appeared on the 2oth, declaring the terri- 
tory " in a state of open insurrecticm and rebel- 
lion," and calling upon all patriotic citizens to rally 
for the defense of law and for the punishment of 
traitors. The pamphleteering cabal of Missouri 
managers reinforced Woodson's proclamation by a 
new manifesto. Now an irreparable blow can be 
delivered. The noble Woodson occupies the exec- 
utive chair, and there is a clear field. What the 
character and policy of the next governor may be 
is a matter of uncertainty. He may prove " a 
second edition of corruption or imbecility." Such 
was the energy and dispatch witli which prepara- 
tions were pushed, that Atchison moved into Kan- 



190 KANSAS. 

sas August 29th and encamped on Bull Creek, fif- 
teen miles north of Osawatomie. 

To Dutch Henry's Crossing must be charged 
much of the havoc and anarchy in which the Kan- 
sas of 1856 weltered. That affair was a fester- 
ing, rankling, envenomed memory among pro-slav- 
ery men. It set afoot retaliatory violences, which 
for a while were successfully matched, and more 
than matched, by their opponents, but finally is- 
sued in a total military collapse of the free-state 
cause. Now Osawatomie, " the headquarters of 
Old Brown," lay within easy reach of Atchison's 
camp. General John W. Reid, with two hundred 
and fifty men, took in hand the business of de- 
stroying it. He approached the town about dawn, 
August 30th, under pilotage of the Rev. Martin 
White, whose experiences two weeks before had 
not served to promote the passive virtues. On 
the outskirts of the village, the expedition met 
Frederick Brown, a son of John Brown, whom 
the divine shot dead — " the ball passing clean 
through the body." 

The entire force available for the defense of 
Osawatomie was only forty-one men, seventeen 
belonging to John Brown's band, and the remain- 
ing twenty-four divided between the companies 
of Dr. W. W. Updegraff and Captain Cline. 
These twoscore men, equal to nothing more than 
a resolute show of fight, took post near the town 
and the line of Reid's approach, among trees and 



PER ASPERA. 191 

underbrush that skh-ted the Marais des Cygnes. 
When the enemy came within range, they opened 
fire and caused some temporary confusion. The 
Missourians unlimbered a field-piece and belched 
grape-shot at the thicket, which crashed harm- 
lessly above the heads of the concealed rifle- 
men. Tiring of the inconsequent bombardment, 
they charged and brought the skirmish to an 
abrupt conclusion. Only one practicable course 
then remained for the handful of men in the 
thicket, and that was to get out of the way with 
all possible dispatch. This they did without 
standing upon the order of their going, and scat- 
tered here and there after an every-man-for-him- 
self fashion. Six free-state men were killed, in- 
cluding assassinations before and after the fight, 
and three wounded. Reid's loss was probably 
not more than five killed — in his own account of 
the affair the number is put at two — and a few 
wounded. Only four cabins escaped the torch, 
so completely did the raiders accomplish their 
mission. 

There was a retaliatory stir among the free- 
state clans. Lane, after two weeks' absence in 
Nebraska or elsewhere, suddenly reappeared. He 
gathered up the available fighting material about 
Lawrence and Topeka, amounting to three hun- 
dred men, and marched against the camp on Bull 
Creek. Nothing came of the expedition. The 
hostile parties approached, surveyed each other, 



192 KANSAS. 

exchanged a few scattering shots, and retired — 
Atchison toward Missouri, and Lane toward Law- 
rence. 

A strong counter-irritant activity burst forth 
from Lecompton while Lane was campaigning 
against Bull Creek. In two days seven cabins 
belonging to free-state men of the neighborhood 
were given to the flames. Sheriffs drove a lively 
traffic in arrests and confiscations. Acting-gov- 
ernor Woodson, eager to make the most of his 
brief sunshine, ordered Colonel Cooke " to invest 
the town of Topeka, and disarm ail the insurrec- 
tionists or aggressive invaders against the organ- 
ized government of the territory, to be found at or 
near that point, retaining them as prisoners, sub- 
ject to the order of the marshal of the territory. 
All their breastworks, forts, or fortifications should 
be leveled to the ground." Though the sins of 
Topeka were just then at their worst, as the 
maraudings heretofore mentioned were in prog- 
ress, yet Colonel Cooke flatly declined to execute 
the order, and was fully sustained by General 
Smith in his disobedience. 

Pro-slavery enterprise at Lecompton led to a 
formidable expedition against that town. The 
attacking force was divided into two columns. 
One column of a hundred and fifty men, led by 
Colonel J. A Harvey, marched up the north bank 
of the Kansas River September 4th, and reached 
its assigned position opposite Lecompton in the 



PER ASPERA. 193 

evening, to cut off retreat in that direction. Har- 
vey waited anxiously but vainly through a cold, 
rainy night, listening for the guns of the other 
column which was to assail the town. Then he 
concluded the expedition had been abandoned, 
and returned to Lawrence. 

But the main body — three hundred men with 
two pieces of artillery, commanded by Lane in 
person, and assigned to the southern route — de- 
layed moving twenty-four hours, and did not reach 
Lecompton until the afternoon of September 5th. 
The advent of the belated column threw that town 
into a spasm of terror. Acting-governor Wood- 
son, teriitorial officials, and private citizens all 
appealed to Colonel Cooke for protection. The 
federal troops encountered the advanced guard of 
Lane's column, under command of Captain Samuel 
Walker, about a mile from the village. " What 
have you come for ? " Colonel Cooke demanded. 
Walker replied that they " came to release pris- 
oners " — men seized for offenses at Franklin and 
elsewhere — " and to have their rights." Collect- 
ing the officers — twenty or thirty responded to 
his request for audience — Colonel Cooke ad- 
dressed them at some length on the condition of 
affairs. He deprecated the demonstration against 
Lecompton, since the Missourians were dispers- 
ing, the prisoners about to be set at liberty, 
and things generally going in their favor. The 
conference issued peacefully, and the expedition 

13 



194 KANSAS. 

returned to Lawrence without firing a shot. Lane 
took no part in the negotiations. When federal 
dragoons appeared he seized a musket, and stepped 
into the ranks as a common soldier. Rumors of 
his presence reached Sheriff Jones, who clamored 
for his arrest. Woodson proposed to write out 
a requisition, but on second thought it was con- 
cluded to let him alone. Colonel Cooke in his 
official account lapsed into a forgivable rhetoric 
of congratulation. " Lecompton and its defend- 
ers," he said, " were outnumbered, and evidently 
in the power of a determined attack. Americans 
thus stood face to face in hostile array and most 
earnest of purpose. As I marched back over these 
beautiful hills, all crowned with moving troops 
and armed men, ... I rejoiced that I had stayed 
the madness of the hour, and prevented, on almost 
any terms, the fratricidal onslaught of country- 
men and fellow-citizens." 

Woodson's lease of power ran only three weeks, 
but in that brief period he drew over the territory 
the sorrowfulest night that had settled upon it. 
Free-state men, who appealed to him, received 
very cavalier treatment. Even that distinguished 
minority of a sub-committee, which captured Gov- 
ernor Shannon, could not tame him. " Your 
troubles," Woodson wrote September 7tli, in reply 
to a remonstrant communication, are " the natural 
and inevitable result of the present lawless and 
revolutionary position in which you have, of your 



PER ASPERA. 195 

own accord, placed yourselves." The minority of 
a sub-committee retorted with spirit : "You have 
left us no alternative but to perish or fight. . . . 
You have called into the field under the name of 
militia a set of thieves, robbers, house-burners, and 
murderers to prey upon the people you have sworn 
to protect. This is the position you occupy be- 
fore the country and a just God, and on you, not 
on us, must rest the responsibility." 

The only cheerful event that illuminates Wood- 
son's inhospitable three weeks' incumbency, and 
for that no credit accrues to him, was the release 
on bail, September 10th, of Governor Robinson, 
after an imprisonment of four months. This con- 
summation was reached principally through the 
unremitting efforts of A. A. Lawrence, who had 
connections of family affiliation as well as of per- 
sonal friendship with President Pierce. " Hav- 
ing been the means of sending Dr. Robinson to 
Kansas," Lawrence wrote August 13th, 1856, " I 
feel bound to take every measure to secure his 
release. . . . Mr. Pomeroy, of Kansas, is now in 
Washington, and has taken from me a letter to 
Mr. Pierce, with whom he has had several inter- 
views ; but in regard to the prisoners he has 
accomplished nothing." Pomeroy, in his report of 
negotiations, represents the president as discours- 
ing copiously " about ' disobedience to law, and 
punishment as the necessary consequence.' I told 
him there was no treason ... in Kansas. He 



1 96 KANSAS. 

was very severe on the ' unauthorized ' free-state 
movement in Kansas. Both of us got hot and 
showed some passion. I content myself by feel- 
ing that I did not show more than he did. . . . 
On the whole, the interview about the prisoners 
was very unsatisfactory." The untoward state of 
negotiations reported by Pomeroy only stimulated 
Lawrence to more vigorous mediatory efforts, 
which shortly brought about a hopeful change in 
the aspect of affairs. " Some action was to have 
been taken yesterday at their [the cabinet's] 
meeting," he writes early in September, " and a 
favorable result may be looked for at once. It is 
said that a letter was received from a lady — the 
wife of one of the prisoners, and probably Mrs. 
Robinson — which put the case in a favorable 
light, and being read aloud by Mrs. Pierce to her 
husband it took hold of the feelings of both." 
These expectations were not disappointed. " I 
have given such orders concerning Dr. Robinson 
as will please you," President Pierce informed the 
Boston friends, and the " Bastile-on-the-prairies " 
was broken up. Mr. Lawrence's knowledge of 
the letter, a not inconsiderable factor in effecting 
the modification of federal policy toward Kansas, 
which now took place, and in hastening the arrival 
of Woodson's successor in the territory, was not so 
slender as his language might seem to imply. He 
drafted the letter himself, and sent it to Mrs. Rob- 
inson, who copied and forwarded it to Mrs. Pierce. 



PER ASP ERA. 197 

The administration, after much careful search, 
pitched upon John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, for 
the vacant gubernatorial post in Kansas, and he 
reached Lecompton September 10th, just as the 
storm raised by Woodson was culminating. He 
owed his selection to a reputation for great exec- 
utive ability. The administration perceived that, 
for political reasons, the disorders in K.msas must 
be composed, and he was expected to accomplish 
that feat. 

Governor Geary stepped into the border tumult 
with the assertive bearing of a Titan. Superb 
and not wholly misplaced was his self-confidence. 
That he did not idealize the situation is clear, as 
he took pains to say that it could not be worse. 
Not only did he fully anticipate success, but the 
very desperation of affairs fascinated him. No- 
vember 28th, after more than ten weeks in the 
territory, he could write to Lawrence, " I am per- 
fectly enthusiastic in my mission." 

The policies and measures with which Gover- 
nor Geary began did him no discredit. " When 
I arrived here," he confided to a friend, " I per- 
ceived at once that, in order to do any good, I must 
rise superior to all partisan considerations, and be 
in simple truth the governor of the entire people." 
He concluded to disband the militia called into 
the field by Woodson, and all unauthorized bodies 
of armed men. If there should be need for soldiers, 
he would enroll actual residents of the territory 



198 KANSAS. 

and muster them into the federal service. Then, 
in reference to the laws, they must be obeyed un- 
til expunged from the statute-book. 

The proclamation which was issued ordering 
the militia to disband produced less effect than 
could have been wished. Lane, it is true, turned 
his face once more toward the familiar regions 
of Nebraska without waiting for its appearance. 
Free-state organizations were inclined to disperse, 
but hesitated, feeling anxious about the move- 
ments of the other side. The governor told them 
under his breath that they might be leisurely in 
their obedience. 

The Missourians had been busy, since the re- 
connaissance upon Bull Creek and the destruction 
of Osawatomie, in fitting out a military force, the 
most formidable in numbers and equipment that 
invaded the territory during the border struggle. 
If Woodson's administration could have been 
stretched into a few days more of life, the com- 
plete conquest of Lawrence and of Kansas would 
have been assured. Neither inaugurals, nor proc- 
lamations, nor explicit orders from Lecompton 
brought to a halt the pro-slavery leaders. They 
pushed on to Franklin. Their approach spread so 
much consternation throughout the region that the 
governor, accompanied by Colonel Cooke with four 
hundred dragoons, set out from Lecompton for 
Lawrence at two o'clock on the morning of Sep- 
tember 13th, where he found two or three hun- 



PER ASPERA. 199 

dred men, poorly armed and completely disorgan- 
ized, awaiting attack. The resuscitated fortifica- 
tions did not find favor with the military folk. 
" The town has some ridiculous attempts at de- 
fenses," said Colonel Cooke, " with two main 
streets barricaded with earth-works, which I could 
ride over. . . . Few of the people had arms in their 
hands." Governor Robinson wrote Mr. Lawrence 
on the 16th, " I found our people in a bad fix 
when I came out of confinement. We have no 
provisions, and not ten rounds of ammunition to a 
man." The scare was premature, as the Missou- 
rians drew off under cover of darkness without 
pressing an attack. Governor Geary made a re- 
assuring speech, and returned to Lecompton. 

But the blow was delayed, not averted. About 
noon on the 14th couriers, riding at a tearing pace, 
began to arrive in Lawrence with intelligence 
that the enemy was advancing in force. The 
town presented a scene of gloomy, almost helpless 
confusion. Captain J. B. Abbott was nominally 
in command, though Governor Robinson, Colonel 
Blood, Captain Walker, and Captain Cracklin 
acted with more or less independence of head- 
quarters. Here and there Old John Brown urged 
his favorite maxim, — " Keep cool and fire low." 
During the afternoon a troop of the enemy's horse 
pushed their reconnaissance within range of the 
few Sharpe's rities which the free-state men had. 
A volley checked their advance and sent them back 



200 KANSAS. 

toward Franklin. The Missoiirians missed tlieir 
opportunity if tliey really wislied to destroy the 
town. Lawrence, with its rickety fortifications 
and its handful of demoralized, poorly armed de- 
fenders, was utterly at their mercy. " So far as 
its inhabitants were concerned," said Governor 
Gearj^ " the place was almost in a defenseless 
condition, and the sacking and taking of it under 
the circumstances would have reflected no honor 
upon the attacking party." 

At sundown dispatches, apprising the governor 
of the situation at Lawrence, reached Lecompton. 
He immediately sent Colonel Johnston with cav- 
alry and artillery to the scene of disturbance, and 
proceeded thither in person next morning at an 
early hour. When he arrived the advanced guard 
of the Missoiirians was in sight and marching 
toward the town. Governor Geary and Colonel 
Cooke hastened to intercept it, and were escorted 
to headquarters at Franklin. " Here about twenty- 
five hundred men," said Colonel Cooke, " armed 
and organized, were drawn up, horse and foot, and 
a strong six-pound battery." 

The governor summoned to a conference the 
principal leaders — .Atchison, Whitfield, Reid, 
Titus, Jones, and others — and made a speech 
flavored to the latitude. " Though held in a board 
house," he said, characteristically magnifying the 
occasion, " the present is the most important coun- 
cil since the days of the Revolution, as its issues 



PER ASPERA. 201 

involve the fate of the Union then formed." The 
governor assured the Missourians that as Demo- 
crats they could not afford to destroy Lawrence, 
and that he could tuke care of the abolitionists 
without their help. '' He promised us all we 
wanted," said Atchison, and the council broke up 
generally satisfied with the governor's plans and 
purposes. The largest and best appointed force 
Missouri ever sent into the territory dissolved, and 
Lawrence was saved, solely by Geary's energ}^ and 
decision. 

The governor pushed the work of pacification 
effectively. One hundred free-state men — fight- 
ing material that should have remained at Law- 
rence in the lowering aspect of affairs — made 
an expedition against Hickory Point, Jefferson 
County. Lane, in his progress toward Nebraska, 
stopped to chastise a pro-slavery band, which took 
refuge in log-cabins at that place and bade him 
defiance. He sent a courier to Lawrence for help, 
who arrived September 13th, and Colonel J. A. 
Harvey immediately responded with one hundred 
or more men. Abandoning his campaign before 
their arrival, Lane expected to meet and turn back 
these reinforcements, it is said ; but they missed 
him, pushed on to Hickory Point, which they 
reached the next forenoon, and fought a miniature 
battle in which one pro-slavery man was killed. 
Then followed a treaty. Both parties agreed to 
retire, and celebrated the conclusion of peace by 



202 KAXSAS. 

passing round a demijohn of whiskey. " The 
drinking was not general on either side," says 
Captain F. B. Swift. " Tliere was no carousal or 
jollification, but the consequences were serious. 
We had been without sleep for thirty-six hours, 
and without food for twenty-four hours, and with- 
out drinkable water all through that hot after- 
noon's skirmish, so that the whiskey proved too 
much for those who drank, and it became neces- 
sary to go into camp a few miles from the scene 
of the fight instead of pushing on to Lawrence." 
Here they were surprised and captured by federal 
Captain T. J. Wood, taken to Lecompton, and ar- 
raigned before Judge Cato, whom Governor Geary 
found at Franklin serving in the Missouri army. 
Judge Cato refused bail, and committed eighty- 
seven prisoners on charges of murder in the first 
degree. A doleful experience of captivity suc- 
ceeded. Trials began in October, and resulted 
variously, the verdicts ranging from acquittal to 
five years in the penitentiary. 

Nor did Governor Geary overlook the judiciary 
in his efforts for reform. He addressed communi- 
cations to the judges, calling them to account for 
the inefficiency of the courts — courts whose re- 
straining and punitive authority over the calami- 
tous course of territorial affairs had been as slight 
and inappreciable as the sway of drift logs over 
the Gulf Stream. Criminal offenses of every grade 
shot up luxuriantly and overshadowed the teiri- 



PER ASPERA. 203 

tory with their noxious umbrage — thefts, arsons, 
manslaughters, murders — 3^et the paltry account 
of criminal convictions footed up two sentences 
for horse-stealing, three or four for assumption of 
office, and twice that number for unlicensed sell- 
ing of liquor. Chief Justice Lecompte replied at 
length. He claimed that partisan bias had never 
tarnished his judicial record, and insisted, with 
some show of reason, that the unhappy, inhospi- 
table times were answerable for the paralysis of 
the judiciary. 

Temporarily Governor Geary succeeded. The 
territory gradually settled into something like re- 
pose. Marauders of every sort, free-state and pro- 
slavery, who had so successfully established a reign 
of terror, abandoned the field. After a pleasant 
tour of observation, which occupied twenty days, 
finding " the benign influences of peace " every- 
where prevalent, the governor appointed Thurs- 
day, November 20th, " as a day of general praise 
and thanksgiving to Almighty God." Depart- 
ment commander Smith shared in his hopefulness. 
" I consider tranquillity and order," he reported 
November 11th, "entirely restored in Kansas." 

An astute, unpublic movement was also afoot 
to put the peace on permanent foundations by 
a transfusion of the territorial government into 
the Topeka state government. " What if by 
means of certain influences," Governor Robinson 
wrote Mr. Lawrence December 21st, " the Topeka 



204 KANSAS. 

constitution should be admitted, the state gover- 
nor should resign, the territorial governor be unan- 
imously elected, and we should have a peaceable 
free state ? Of course the Senate will need to 
compromise the matter with the House by provid- 
ing for submitting the constitution once more to 
the people. This with an election law by Con- 
gress and Governor Geary to execute it would be 
no very serious objection." The short cut into 
the Union offered many advantages over compet- 
ing methods. It involved the resignation of Kob- 
inson, the election of Geary in his place, and a 
little favorable congressional action. Geary advo- 
cated the scheme enthusiastically. In his anxiety 
to elude observation, and not seem to be on too 
friendly terms with prominent free-state men, he 
made an appointment to meet Robinson in the 
attic of a log-cabin at Lecompton, a low, dingy 
store-room, in which it was impossible to stand 
upright except directly under the roof-tree. " I 
am sure my fiiend Buchanan," said Geary, "will 
be glad to get out of the scrape in this way." The 
date of an adjourned meeting of the Topeka legis- 
lature was January 6th, 1857. Robinson, who 
went to Washington to engineer the consolidation 
project, left behind his resignation as governor. 
On the first day of the session no quorum ap- 
peared. The second brought larger numbers and 
organization. But at the close of business the 
federal marshal, who was lying in wait, arrested 



PER ASPERA. 205 

a dozen members, and the legislature took a recess 
until the 9th of June. Robinson's mission to 
Washington did not prosper. The administration 
was unfriendly, and nothing could be done. In 
truth, Geary, fast falling under suspicion at Wash- 
ington, had seen bis brightest Kansas days. The 
confusion and alarm of a reawakened anarchy 
followed hard upon the pseans of his public thanks- 
giving. 

The territorial legislature began its second ses- 
sion at Lecompton January 12th, 1857, and gave 
Governor Geary plenty of wormwood to bite upon. 
Substantially the council of the first legislature 
reappeared, but a new and undissenting pro-slav- 
ery House of Representatives had been elected. 
Gihon, in his rather intemperate and heavily-col- 
ored book, " Governor Geary's Administration in 
Kansas," describes the legislature as chiefly a vul- 
gar, illiterate, hiccoughing rout — blindly, madly, 
set on planting slavery securely in the territory. 
His picture, however, after all abatements and 
concessions are granted, still retains large elements 
of historic fidelity. At every turn this brass- 
throated legislature confronted the governor and 
his fair-play policy. Not satisfied with the din 
stirred up in Kansas, pro-slavery leaders sent on 
men to plot and vociferate in Washington. Lo- 
cally affairs came to a crisis in the death of a 
young man by the name of Sherrard — well-born, 
with generous traits of character, but under the 



206 KANSAS. 

influence of drink or bad advice a desperado. 
Sherrard failed to secure an office for which he 
was an applicant, and charged his disappointment 
to the governor, whom he endeavored to draw into 
an altercation as an excuse for shooting him. He 
equipped himself for the encounter with two heavy 
revolvers and a bowie-knife. Meeting Geary as 
he left the legislative hall, he began to assail him 
with abusive words. Geary did not notice the 
insult. His coolness and self-command probably 
saved his life. This ineffectual essay at assassi- 
nation received, perhaps, some inspiration from 
members of the legislature. In the House of Rep- 
resentatives the Rev. Martin White presented 
laudatory resolutions, but that body shrank from 
so formal an encomium. 

Governor Geary became alarmed. He applied 
to the fcideral commander at Leavenworth for 
additional troops, and was rebuffed with the an- 
nouncement that they were otherwise occupied. 
By this denial of protection, the fact that the ad- 
ministration had abandoned him passed from hint 
and conjecture into declaration. Free-state men 
rallied in support of the deserted governor. There 
began a series of indorsing, panegyric mass-meet- 
ings, which reached a tragic conclusion at Lecomp- 
ton February 18th. Here the usual resolutions 
friendly to the governor were introduced, which 
threw Sherrard, who took pains to be present, into 
a paroxysm of rage. Leaping upon a pile of 



PER ASPERA. 207 

boards, he delivered a brief but clear and pithy- 
address : "Any man who will indorse these reso- 
lutions is a liar, a scoundrel, and a coward." One 
man in the crowd did indorse them, and said so 
rather loudly and defiantly. This exhibition of 
frankness was resented by an appeal to pistols. 
The fight spluttered and fusilladed for a time 
without much execution ; then concluded abruptly 
with the death of the desperado. " I saw Sher- 
rard leap into the air as a bullet struck him in 
the forehead,'' said a quiet, pacific spectator. " I 
don't think anything ever happened in the terri- 
tory that pleased me so much as the shooting of 
that man." The fatal pistol shot also dispersed 
numerous pro-slavery roughs in attendance, and 
spoiled a pretty programme of mischief which 
they had sketched. 

Governor Geary's extraordinary hopefulness 
and self-confidence temporarily gave way. The 
enthusiasm for his mission, which blazed and 
crackled so brilliantly three months before, now 
burned feebly and intermittently like a twinkling 
flame among dying embers. " My only consola- 
tion now is," he wrote A. A. Lawrence February 
25th, " that my labors are properly appreciated 
by, and that I have the sympathy of, very many 
of the best citizens of the Union. . . . How much 
longer I shall be required to sacrifice pecuniary 
interests, comfort, and health in what appears al- 
most a thankless work remains to be determined." 



208 KANSAS. 

The sacrifice continued only a few days, when the 
governor abandoned the territory very hastily and 
informally. The end had been predicted from the 
beginning. " What you say suits us fiirst-rate," 
said Captain Samuel Walker, an old acquaint- 
ance, as he was eloquently expounding his pur- 
poses to a little knot of listeners in his office at 
Lecompton soon after his arrival ; " but mark my 
word, you '11 take the underground railroad out 
of Kansas in six months." " I '11 show you," 
Geary retorted, with the emphasis of a smart blow 
on the table at which he sat, " and all the d — d 
rascals that I am governor of Kansas. The ad- 
ministration is behind me." The prophecy was 
literally fulfilled. About midnight March 10th 
a heavy knock at his cabin door roused Captain 
Walker. Great was his surprise to find that the 
belated visitor was Governor Geary, with two re- 
volvers buckled about his waist, on his way out 
of the territory. Though agitated and shaken by 
the perils hounding his trail, his self-assertion was 
not wholly extinguished. " I 'm going to Wash- 
ington," he informed his host, " and I '11 straighten 
things out," 

But Geary found the authorities at Washington 
deaf to his talk. Nothing remained for him but 
to print a leave-taking address and make his exit, 
after a stirring, egotistic, even-handed, almost 
brilliant six months in Kansas. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 

The presidential election of 1856, whicli re- 
sulted in a Democratic victory, turned chiefly upon 
questions brought to the surface by the contest 
in Kansas. Into all the national conventions — 
American, Whig, Republican, and Democratic — 
the territory thrust its disturbing presence. The 
struggle was remarkable in many respects. Never 
before did a presidential election turn so largely 
upon questions of statesmanship, of ethics and the 
higher law. A variety of influences contributed 
to this temporary lustration of national politics, 
but they all radiated from the slavery problem, 
the compromise of 1850, the tempest in Kansas, 
and the phenomenal currency of " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin." 

The Democratic campaign dealt heavily in 
threat and menace. Southern orators and news- 
papers drew lamentable pictures of the woes that 
would succeed a Republican triumph. Such an 
untoward event, they did not scruple to announce, 
would certainly justify, if it did not absolutely 
necessitate, a destruction of the Union. James 

14 



210 KANSAS. 

Buchanan's election as president postponed the 
date of secession. 

Two days after the inauguration of Mr. Bu- 
chanan, Chief Justice Taney, of the Supreme 
Court, delivered the famous Dred Scott decision, 
the purport of which was that slavery should have 
the freedom of the public domain — that nobody 
should meddle with it before the adoption of a 
state constitution. 

President Buchanan, alarmed by the disastrous 
effect of the Kansas disturbances, immediately 
cast about for some cloud-compelling successor to 
Governor Geary. Robert J. Walker, a Pennsyl- 
vanian, though long resident in Mississippi — an 
active, shrewd, tonguey, intellectual, withered 
little man, experienced and not unsuccessful in 
public vocations — was selected as the best pro- 
tagonist within call to invade the perilous nether 
world of Kansas. 

Walker's appointment indicated a change in 
federal tactics and policy. It was now conceded 
that Kansas could not with any likelihood be made 
a slave state, but it was hoped that by a skillful 
disintegration of existing parties, and the forma- 
tion of an administration party out of their ruins, 
it might be made a Democratic state. To this 
task Walker brought a veteran political astuteness, 
from which much was expected. That the work 
of any constitutional convention which might con- 
vene should be fully and unqualifiedly submitted 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 211 

to the people for ratification or rejection was a 
prominent feature of the revised programme, and 
one to which President Buchanan gave assent. 

Meanwhile the new territorial secretary, Fred- 
eric P. Stanton — an able, scholarly lawyer who 
had served ten years in Congress as representative 
from Tennessee — proceeded to Kansas in advance 
of the governor. He immediately issued an ad- 
dress in which the policy of the new administra- 
tion was briefly set forth. The address did not 
have an enthusiastic reception. Pro-slavery ad- 
herents viewed with apprehension the fact that 
the secretary seemed to have a mind of his own, 
while the other side preferred to withhold their 
approval until the new regime should have passed 
successfully a period of probation. 

A pro-slavery constitutional convention had 
long been preparing. The movement began in 
the first territorial legislature, which submitted 
the question of its expediency to the people in 
October, 1856. At the polls there was a favor- 
able verdict. The next legislature passed a bill 
authorizing the election of delegates June 15th, 
1857. Governor Geary vetoed the measure, be- 
cause it failed to provide that the people should 
pass upon the proposed constitution at the polls, 
and because he regarded it impolitic " for a few 
thousand people, scarcely sufficient to make a good 
county," to set up an establishment of their own; 
but his effort to check the legislature was like 



212 KANSAS. 

trying to drain an Irish bog with a sponge. The 
census, prefatory to this election, turned out to be 
a very imperfect affair. Apportionment of del- 
egates depended on population, but nobody could 
vote whose name did not appear in the registry 
lists. In sixteen only out of the thirty-four or- 
ganized counties was there any registration, and 
the census tables showed still larger gaps. For 
this condition of things the pro -slavery party 
was not wholly responsible. Free-state men per- 
plexed the enumeration by embarrassments of 
omission and commission, and were not ill pleased 
at the starved and skeleton returns. Unfortu- 
nately, Secretary Stanton, fresh upon the ground 
and not fully cognizant of the situation, appor- 
tioned delegates for the convention on the basis of 
the defective census. Here was another firebrand 
flung upon free-state straw. The territory was 
again in a flame. After much talk and some 
fruitless negotiation, the anti-slavery party con- 
cluded to let the election go by default. " Men 
who could expend thousands, and travel many a 
weary mile to fill Kansas with rifles," said Rep- 
resentative Hughes, of Indiana, " could not walk 
across the street to vote." The election passed off 
tamely. Less than one fourth of the nine thou- 
sand two hundred and fifty-one registered voters 
took part in it. The material and animus of the 
convention were completely satisfactory to the pro- 
slavery party. 



TBE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 213 

Governor Walker reached Lecompton May 26th, 
and gave his inaugural to the public the next day. 
It was a diffuse, reverberating, able exposition of 
the new policy which had been agreed upon in 
Washington. Shortly after he made a tour of ob- 
servation and of exposition. By conferences with 
the people, public and private, he hoped to con- 
vince them that his purposes were pacific and 
honorable, and that their interests lay in discard- 
ing every form of controversy except " the peace- 
ful but decisive struggle of the ballot-box." He 
was in Topeka June 6th, and made a cogent, un- 
equivocal, manly address. In three days a session 
of the state legislature, adjourned from the dis- 
consolate January meeting, would begin. Should 
the state legislature enact a code of laws and at- 
tempt to put it in force, as some free-state men 
still urged, there could be, in the opinion of Gov- 
ernor Walker, only one issue — " absolute, clear, 
direct, and positive collision between that legisla- 
tui-e and the government of the United States." 
In the most explicit and reduplicative language 
he declared that henceforth the people of KansMS 
were to manage their own concerns. If the foi-th- 
coming convention, auditors asked, should decline 
to submit the new constitution to the people, what 
then? " I will join j^ou, fellow citizens," the gov- 
ernor replied, "in opposition to their course. And 
I doubt not that one much higher than I, the chief 
magistrate of the Union, will join you." 



214 KANSAS. 

Walker tarried in Topeka to watch the legisla- 
ture. This session, like that of July 4th, 1856, 
was yoked with a mass convention which began at 
an early hour June 9th, and did not dissolve until 
eight o'clock at night. The convention undertook 
the same functions of coaching and surveillance 
as its prototype. It wrestled with the perennial 
question whether the Topeka government should 
be placed squarely on its feet, or merely take such 
measures as would keep a breath of life in the 
organization without clashing with the territorial 
authorities. Though the discussions frothed and 
declaimed, the conclusions were of a mild, do- 
nothing order. Walker with all his astuteness did 
not wholly fathom the tremendous oratory of the 
convention. It was craftily handled so as to im- 
press him with the conviction that unless the anti- 
slavery folk should receive fair treatment, unless 
constitutional conventions should remand their in- 
struments to the polls for final adjudication, revo- 
lutionary convulsions would certainly break out. 
The convention accomplished its mission. Walker 
wrote his superiors in Washington that had it not 
been for his intervention " the more violent course 
would have prevailed, and the territory imme- 
diately involved in a general and sanguinary civil 
war." 

When the legislature assembled no quorum ap- 
peared. This fact was carefully hidden from the 
impressionable Walker. Governor Robinson, find- 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 215 

ing the shrewd scheme of merging the territorial 
in the state government impracticable, recalled 
his resignation at the instance of the legislature, 
and read a message before that unpopulous body, 
which once more adjourned after transacting a lit- 
tle harmless amateur business. 

In addition to the constitutional convention an 
event of no secondary importance would take 
place in the autumn. That event was the elec- 
tion of a new territorial legislature, preparations 
for which filled the summer with tumult. The 
law and order gentry, who now called themselves 
" National Democrats," gathered at Lecompton 
early in July, to make nominations and lay plans 
for the campaign. Forty-three delegates were in 
attendance, who put forth a series of moderate 
resolutions compared with the highly seasoned 
viands which the border palate heretofore de- 
manded. Some fire-eater presented a resolution 
in convention, asking Congress to receive the ter- 
ritory into the Union under the forthcoming con- 
stitution, whether the people would be allowed to 
vote upon it or not ; but the resolution was effect- 
ually disposed of by a vote of forty-two in opposi- 
tion to one in the affirmative. Governor Walker, 
who seldom declined invitations to make a speech, 
delivered an address that was favorably received. 

In free-state quarters the question now began 
to be agitated, whether the policy of non-partici- 
pation in territorial elections did not need revis- 



216 KANSAS. 

ing. Governor Walker's vehement pledges of fair 
play produced an impression. The mischief of a 
vicious census could not be completely undone, 
yet with a square-dealing executive success was 
possible in the face of it. Henry Wilson, of Mas- 
sachusetts, visited the territory for the purpose 
of urging upon free-state men the imperative ne- 
cessity of their making an effort to capture the 
legislature, and offered to raise funds among East- 
em friends to meet the campaign expenses. In 
these views he was heartily supported by Gov- 
ernor Robinson, who had always been ready to 
meet the pro-slavery party at the polls whenever 
an honest count of ballots could be assured. 

A series of conventions now began which ri- 
valed in noise and frequency the series of 1855. 
Nearly two hundi-ed delegates, representing the 
whole territory, assembled at Topeka July 15th. 
Though the special business of this gathering was 
to nominate certain state government officers, that 
did not preclude general discussions and the adop- 
tion of resolutions which freely abused the " bo- 
gus " legislature, authorized Lane to put the mili- 
tia on a war-footing, and called another convention 
at Grasshopper Falls to settle the question of vot- 
ing or not voting. 

August 26th the free-state people met at Grass- 
hopper Falls. There the unanimity which pre- 
vailed at Topeka two months before gave way. 
A minority of indignant, impracticable radicals, 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 217 

like Redpath and Conway, denounced the proposi- 
tion to contest the election for members of the ter- 
ritorial legislature as " a back-down in principle 
and unpromising in practical results." The ig- 
nominies of stultification they set forth in dark, 
repulsive colors, but to uo purpose, as the con- 
vention went unanimously and demonstratively 
against them. It was the judgment of the con- 
vention that the free-state party should make an 
attempt to get possession of the legislature. On 
the point of consistency, little can be said in de- 
fense of this conclusion. But the convention 
agreed with Governor Robinson that " men who 
are too conscientious and too honorable to change 
their tactics with a change of circumstances are 
too conscientious for politics." 

The convention did not regard its work com- 
plete without the preparation of an address to 
the people. It confided this duty to a committee 
of fourteen, which, in spite of its own bulk that 
ought to have been reassuring, surveyed the fu- 
ture with the bilious eyes of a Jeremiah. " We 
frankly avow ourselves," said the committee, " not 
sanguine of success." Voters disfranchised in 
many counties ; threats of invasion from Mis- 
souri ; distrust of Governor Walker ; " a hellish 
system of districting and apportionment ; " elec- 
tion judges mostly " border ruflfians of the deepest 
dye " — such wei-e some of the calamities that 
oppressed the fourteen and saddened their vision. 



218 KANSAS. 

Prophets of evil misread the signs of the times. 
The 5th of October, on which members of the ter- 
ritorial legislature were elected, proved to be a 
red-letter day for freedom in Kansas. Probably 
the fact that federal troops were sent into no less 
than fourteen precincts, with orders to prevent all 
illegal voting, discouraged invasions from Missouri. 
The election was unprolific in tumults. Even the 
redoubtable town of Kickapoo did not get beyond 
a rather prosy brawl. At two points extensive 
frauds were attempted. McGee County was then 
an Indian reservation, and therefore not open to 
settlement. It contained a very sparse white pop- 
ulation. At the June election only fourteen votes 
were cast. Yet in October twelve hundred and 
sixty -six pro-slaverj'^ ballots purported to have 
been polled there. The town of Oxford, Johnson 
County, made a still more flagrant showing. This 
paltry hamlet " of six houses, including stores," 
reported sixteen hundred and twenty-eight votes. 

The Oxford and McGee returns brought on a 
crisis. If they should be counted, the legislature 
would remain pro-slavery; if they should be re- 
jected, it would pass into control of the opposition. 
A little inspection showed them to be clumsily 
executed forgeries. October 19th Walker and 
Stanton issued a proclamation throwing out the 
Oxford returns on the ground of technical infor- 
malities, and in three days those from McGee 
fared in the same way. 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 219 

This action made a tempest among the Na- 
tional Democrats. On the 23d they held an in- 
dignation meeting at Lecompton, and gave vent 
to their sentiments in seventeen furious but idle 
resolutions. Then Judge Cato came to the res- 
cue with a mandamus, ordering the governor and 
secretary to issue certificates of election to the 
pro-slavery candidates from Douglas and Johnson 
counties ; but the judge had no better success 
than the mass-meeting. Other resources failing, 
Sheriff Jones, who was one of the excluded candi- 
dates, attempted to get his credentials by violence. 
Striding into Stanton's ofl&ce with a companion, 
he demanded that the papers should be at once 
filled out ; but he found the secretary could not 
be intimidated. This gross outrage stirred up ex- 
citement. On the evening of the succeeding day 
a company of mounted free-state men called upon 
Stanton, and assured him that if it would be a 
convenience to have Jones put out of the way, 
and if the authorities would wink at the affair, 
he should be strung up before morning. Their 
services were politely declined. Jones and his 
confederates escaped with a light and whimsical 
penalty. The affair threw the excitable governor 
into a great rage. He was sick at the time, and 
could do nothing. On recovering, he made a dem- 
onstration upon what he called the enemy. Arm- 
ing himself with a small "pepper-box" pistol, 
he began a tour of objurgation. " Come along," 



220 KANSAS. 

he said to Stanton, " let us go to see the Bengal 
tigers." And this puny incarnation of a tremen- 
dous choler — lapse of time inflaming rather than 
cooling his passion — visited the dens and drink- 
ing saloons of Lecompton, and denounced their 
inmates with a savage energy that Timon of 
Athens could not have outdone. The governor 
returned from his circumnavigation of invective, 
happy in the thought that for once the " Bengal 
tigers " had heard themselves described in faithful 
and unmistakable English. 

The proclamations of October 19tli and 22d 
dashed all schemes of building a victorious ad- 
ministration party out of existing political or- 
ganizations. The animosities, to which they im- 
parted large and tempestuous vitality, defeated 
the latest, craftiest strategy of the administration. 
These consequences, which wrote failure in large 
letters across their personal and special mission 
to Kansas, were not hidden from Walker and 
Stanton. They issued the crucial proclamations, 
which conceded to the free-state party nine of 
the thirteen councilmen and twenty-four of the 
thirty-nine representatives, with the keenest ap- 
preciation of all they implied — issued them in 
honorable fulfillment of public pledges that the 
polls should be protected. 

The pro-slavery party made one more desperate 
effort to stay their foundering fortunes. Only 
in the direction of the constitutional convention, 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 221 

of which they had absohite control, were there 
signs of promise. That body, representing a small 
minority of actual voters in the territory, gath- 
ered at Lecompton September 7th. Forty-four 
members in a total of sixty responded to their 
names. John Calhoun, surveyor general of the 
territory, was elected president, with the usual 
complement of subordinate officials, including a 
chaplain. Some members of the convention re- 
garded the employment of a man to pray foolish, 
but a majority believed it " would have a good 
effect on the country," however bootless it might 
be locally. The convention remained in session 
four days, which were principally devoted to or- 
ganization, and then adjourned until October 19th. 
The special motive for delay was the approach- 
ing election for members of the legislature, the 
issue of which would, in large measure, mould its 
policy. 

Lecompton was in an uproar October 19th. 
Thither on that day flocked hundreds of free-state 
men, inspired by the thought that " nothing is 
so difficult for a scoundrel to do as to meet the 
clear, honest gaze of the man whom he is trying 
to wrong." So they thronged Lecompton to look 
into the eyes of members of the convention. 
What they might have done in addition to this 
personal scrutiny, had not the appearance of the 
Walker-Stanton proclamation sweetened their tem- 
per, is not entirely certain. 



222 KANSAS. 

The demonstration impressed the convention 
deeply. For three days in succession no quorum 
appeared ; hut on the fourth day a sufficient num- 
ber of absentees for the transaction of business 
was secured. The convention found itself tangled 
in the meshes of a very perplexing task. It had 
essayed to saddle a pro-slavery constitution upon 
a community overwhelmingly anti-slavery. The 
constitution which it made was well enough, ex- 
cept in the matter of slavery, in regard to which 
it took extreme ground. " The right of prop- 
erty," it announced, "is before and higher than 
any constitutional sanction, and the right of the 
owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is 
the same and as inviolable as the right of any 
property whatever." This doctrine, as Mr. Douglas 
said, would deprive the State of all authority to 
abolish or prohibit slavery. 

But it was plain as a pike-staff that the people 
would make short work of the new constitution if 
they should be allowed to vote upon it. In this 
unhappy situation, it only remained to devise some 
make-shift in the place of unqualified submission, 
or abandon the fight. A part of the convention, 
under the lead of Judge Rush Elmore, advocated 
full submission, let the result be what it might, 
but were voted down. Then came a compro- 
mise. The entire constitution should not go before 
the people, but only the slavery article. Ballots 
might be cast indorsed " Constitution with slav- 



THE LE CO MP TON STRUGGLE. 223 

ery" or " Constitution with no slavery." Should 
the first proposition carry, slavery with restricted 
emancipation possibilities would be definitely 
planted in the State. If the second proposition 
prevailed, then " slavery shall no longer exist in 
the State of Kansas, except that the right of prop- 
erty in slaves now in this territory shall in no 
manner be interfered with." Free-state men com- 
monly interpreted this qualification of the no-slav- 
ery alternative as utterly foreclosing all hope of 
success on their part. A no-slavery victory must 
not disturb the slavery which had already secured 
a foothold in the commonwealth. The alternative 
presented " was like submitting to the ancient test 
of witchcraft, where if the accused, upon being 
thrown into deep water, floated he was adjudged 
guilty, taken out, and hanged ; but if he sunk and 
was drowned he was adjudged not guilty — the 
choice between the verdicts being quite immate- 
rial." When legitimately interpreted, however, 
the proviso would probably yield no such sense as 
free-state exegesis found in it. This point was 
pretty conclusively established by Senator Bay- 
ard, who contended that the right of property 
vested in existing slaves, and not in their unborn 
children. That construction, he maintained, was 
forced by the general intent and scope of the 
declaration, " Slavery shall no longer exist in the 
State of Kansas." 

The compromise divided the convention, in 



224 KANSAS. 

which there was a strong faction that protested 
against every sort of submission. " This is a 
grand humbug," said a furious Riley County dele- 
gate, echoing free-state expositions of the no-slav- 
ery alternative. " It is not fair. ... I tell you 
this scheme of swindling submission will be the 
blackest page in your history, and we will never 
hear the end of it. We won't make much capital 
out of it, I tell you. Those Black Republicans 
will get to the bottom of it so quick that you 11 
never cease to hear from this dodge. ... I 'm op- 
posed to submission. I tell you these Republicans 
will vote down both of them. . . . The only con- 
sistent, honest, straightforward way is to make 
our constitution and send it on to Congress. I 
believe Congress will admit us. If it will not, 
then let our defeat lie at its door. This humbug- 
ging, dodging way I do not believe in. I want to 
be open and above board." Another Riley County 
implacable declaimed in the same strain. He said 
the compromise carried '' falsehood on its face in 
letters of brass. ... It is a lie, cheat, and swindle. 
I 'm a pro-slavery man. I want to make Kansas 
a slave state. . . . The trick was concocted by 
free-state Democrats. If they pass this majority 
report they will make Kansas not only a free but 
a Republican state. . . . The South has reached a 
crisis in her fortunes and must have Kansas. . . . 
Make Kansas a slave state and the abolition ele- 
ment will flee out of it." 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 225 

The compromise was carried after a stubborn 
fight, and the convention dissolved November 7th. 
John Calhoun issued proclamations designating 
December 21st as the day for voting on the slav- 
ery article, and January 4th, 1858, for election of 
officers under the new constitution. The conven- 
tion, contemptuously ignoring Governor Walker, 
authorized its president to take such measures 
as might be necessary to carry its purposes into 
effect. 

The sequel at Lecorapton again stirred the em- 
bers. Free-state men had taken comparatively 
little interest in the convention during its earlier 
stages, as they intended to dispatch at the polls 
any constitution that might be put together. Now, 
to their astonishment, they found that only a frag- 
ment of it would be submitted, and to that frag- 
ment they applied the fallacious witch-test con- 
struction. The enemy were manoeuvring to turn 
their flank and convert the October victory into 
a barren triumph. Mass-meetings gathered here 
and there in which the "robber" convention was 
cursed in copious Thersitean dialect. Radicals 
demanded that now, after so many empty threats, 
the state government should be made something 
more than a name. Among these anti-Lecompton 
gatherings, the largest and most important met 
at Lawrence on the 2d of December. The one 
hundred and thirty delegates in attendance in- 
cluded nearly all the prominent free-state leaders. 

15 



226 KANSAS. 

Governor Robinson presided. Impassioned ha- 
rangues evoked a vast amount of enthusiasm. 
Resolutions were adopted alive with hostility to 
the new constitution : " Appealing to the God 
of Justice and Humanity, we do solemnly enter 
into league and covenant with each other that we 
will never, under any circumstances, permit the 
said constitution, so framed and not submitted, 
to be the organic law for the State of Kansas, 
but do pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our 
sacred honor in ceaseless hostility to the same." 

Amidst the general confusion and casting 
about somebody bethought himself of the recently 
captured and fumigated legislature as a possible 
source of deliverance, and suggested that it should 
be called together. What it could accomplish 
was uncertain, but it would not, at all events, fail 
to make itself useful. Governor Walker had set 
out in chagrin for Washington — his astute 
schemes overset, execrated by pro -slavery men, 
deserted by the administration. His departure 
shifted all executive responsibility upon Secretary 
Stanton, who was sorely beset on all sides to con- 
vene the legislature. That step he finally took, 
though foreseeing tliat it would be followed by 
his dismissal from office, of which he received for- 
mal notification December 16th. 

The territorial legislature, " dipped into the tur- 
bid waters of Black Republicanism " and made 
clean, assembled at Lecompton December 7th. 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 227 

There was a roistering free -state jubilee that 
day in the old pro-slavery stronghold. From all 
parts of the territory came throngs of people to 
participate in the festivities, which comprised 
speeches, resolutions, groans for the " Lecompton 
swindle," and cheers for the Topeka constitution. 
So powerful were outside attractions that they 
thinned the legislature out of a quorum. It could 
do nothing until the hurrahing pother subsided 
and the rout dispersed. As a defense against pro- 
slavery movements, the legislature very sensibly 
ordered an unreserved submission of the consti- 
tution to the people on the 4th of January. A 
third ballot was added to those already author, 
ized, indorsed " Against the constitution formed 
at Lecompton." 

The Lawrence mass-meeting of December 2d 
pronounced the elections which the Lecompton 
convention ordered to be unworthy of free-state 
countenance. In regard to the election of De- 
cember 21st, when only pro-slavery voters went to 
the polls, the wisdom of its sentence was unques- 
tioned. But the January matter was not so clear. 
An impression got abroad that the mass-meeting 
had blundered ; that it would be prudent — an 
anchor cast to the windward — to furnish the 
Lecompton constitution with an equipment of 
free-state officials as a precaution against possible 
contingencies. Therefore the convention was re- 
assembled on the 23d of December to review in 



228 KANSAS. 

part its proceedings. At this later session two 
parties appeared. One faction defended and the 
other combated the proposition to put a state 
ticket in the field. To take possession of a pos- 
sible state government, not for purposes of estab- 
lishing but of destroying it, it was urged, was 
a simple dictate of prudence. The radicals rang 
changes upon the inconsistency of such a course 
for free-state men, after calling the " Eumenides 
and all the heavenly brood " to witness that they 
would never recognize the " Lecompton swindle " 
in any shape, and they carried the day. 

The defeated party immediately resolved itself 
into " a bolter's convention," named a full ticket 
of state officers, and elected them. Against the 
Lecompton constitution, for which anti-slavery of- 
ficers were provided, ten thousand two hundred 
and twenty-six votes were polled. That vote, 
though it did not escape irregularities of form, 
showed incontrovertibly the drift of public senti- 
ment in the territory. 

In the mean time a new acting-governor had 
appeared in the territory — General John W. 
Denver, a Virginian and a lawyer, well reputed 
for successful service in the Mexican war and in 
California. At the time of his appointment he 
held the office of Indian Commissioner, was visit- 
ing Kansas, and domiciled with Secretary Stanton. 
" I had been repeatedly solicited," said Denver, 
"to take the position, but I did not want it. I 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 229 

used to live on the border before Kansas was 
thrown open to settlement. I chummed with 
Senator Atchison at Platte City, and knew per- 
sonally all the leading men of western Missouri. 
I was afraid, if I accepted the post, that they 
might ask of me what I should not wish to do." 
The more conservative free-state sentiment Den- 
ver conciliated at the beginning of his term of 
oflSce, by announcing that he should carry out in 
good faith the policy of his predecessor. 

The elections appointed by the Lecompton con- 
stitutional convention had a long appendix of in- 
vestigations, which made havoc with the original 
returns. A legislative committee examined them, 
and reported that the alleged vote December 21st, 
of six thousand two hundred and twenty-six for 
the constitution with slavery, contained twenty- 
seven hundred and twenty fraudulent ballots, 
which were cast mostly at Kickapoo, Delaware 
Crossing, and Oxford. In the contest for state 
officers, January 4th, the number of fraudulent 
ballots fell off to twenty-four hundred and fifty- 
eight in a pro-slavery vote for governor of six 
thousand five hundred and forty-five. 

A curious history attaches to these election re- 
turns. The legislative investigating committee 
were anxious to secure them. John Calhoun, 
surveyor general and president of the constitu- 
tional convention, taking alarm at the situation, 
prudently left the territory. The coveted ballots 



230 KANSAS. 

were supposed to be in the hands of L. A. Mc- 
Lean, his chief clerk, who appeared before the 
committee and testified that he had forwarded 
them to Calhoun. February 1st a messenger 
reached the cabin of Captain Samuel Walker, 
then sheriff of Douglas County, bringing informa- 
tion from General William Brindle that the re- 
turns were secreted under a wood-pile near Mc- 
Lean's office. Arming himself with a warrant 
which instructed him to " diligently search for 
the said goods and chattels," Walker appeared in 
Lecompton the next morning and apprised Mc- 
Lean of his business. "You are welcome to 
search," lie responded. " I have sent the returns 
to Calhoun. They are not here." " I think you 
are mistaken," said the sheriff. " I know where 
they are." " Where ? " " Under the wood-pile." 
" I forbid you to search," McLean rejoined, and 
began some warlike demonstrations, which were 
speedily quelled. Walker dug up the returns, con- 
cealed in a candle-box, and carried them to Law- 
rence. Naturally the investigating committee de- 
cided to recall Chief Clerk McLean, who con- 
sulted Sheriff Jones as to whether he should obey 
the subpoena. " I told him to come down and 
face the music ; he said he was going to Missouri ; 
I saw him start toward the river . . . ; I think he 
got a mule from some one on the road." 

President Buchanan, retreating from his pledges 
to Governor Walker in obedience to Southern die- 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 231 

tation, transmitted, February 2d, the Lecompton 
constitution to Congress, accompanied by a special 
message, in which he urged that Kansas should 
be speedily admitted to the Union, though the in- 
strument had not been fully submitted to the peo- 
ple. Of the actual condition of Kansas he was 
not ignorant. Soon after his arrival in the terri- 
tory Governor Denver forwarded to Washington 
by special messenger a long communication fully 
setting forth the state of affairs, and urgently 
cou.nseling the president not to present the Le- 
compton constitution to Congress at all, but to ad- 
vocate the passage of an enabling act and let the 
people make a fresh start. Mr. Buchanan was 
impressed by the letter. He said " that he was 
very sorry that he had not had the information 
sooner, because he had prepared his message in 
relation to the Lecompton constitution, and had 
shown it to several senators, and could not with- 
draw it." 

When the Lecompton constitution reached 
Washington, the general reputation of Kansas in 
pro-slavery circles was greatly depressed. " The 
whole history of Kansas is a disgusting one from be- 
ginning to end," said Senator Hammond, of South 
Carolina. " I have avoided reading it as much 
as I could." Senator Biggs, of North Carolina, 
confessed to "misgivings whether the people of 
Kansas are of that character from which we may 
hope for an enlightened self-government." Repre- 



282 KANSAS. 

sentative Anderson, of Missouri, fell litfle behind 
the North Carolinian in unfriendliness of opinion : 
" No part of our Union has ever before been set- 
tled by such an ungovernable, reckless people." 
Mr. Atkins, representative from Tennessee, de- 
scribed free-state immigrants as " struggling hordes 
of hired mercenaries, carrying murder, rapine, and 
conflagration in their train." But Senator Alfred 
Iverson topped all competitors in screechy, fish- 
wife violence of phrase ; " Why, sir, if you could 
rake the infernal regions from the centre to the 
circumference and from the surface to the bot- 
tom, you could not fish up such a mass of infa- 
mous corruption as exists in some portions of Kan- 
sas ! " An estimate of the Kansas migration, 
wholly antipodal and dissenting, may be found 
in the "Christian Examiner" for July, 1855. 
" It was reserved," says the writer, " to the pres- 
ent age, and to the present period, to afford the 
sublime spectacle of an extensive migration in 
vindication of a principle. . . . Neither pressure 
from without, nor the beckonings of ambition, nor 
the monitions of avarice, control the great Kansas 
migration. ... In the unselfishness of the object 
lies its claim ... to the highest place in the his- 
tory of migrations ! " 

Arguments in defense of the Lecompton meas- 
ure — the debate filled more than nine hundred 
pages of the " Congressional Globe " — made the 
most of technicalities. Samuel A. Smith, rep re- 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 233 

sentative from Tennessee, stood almost alone in 
advocacy of its claims to popular approval. " The 
whole people of Kansas," he said, " are in favor 
of the admission of the State mider the Lecorap- 
ton constitution," except " Lane with his ma- 
rauders, his murderers, and his house-burners " 
— an insignificant gang that did not " number 
more than eight hundred." Foolish talk of this 
sort found little favor. For the constitution there 
was a single tenable line of defense — that it was 
the work of a legitimate convention which had 
observed all indispensable formalities. The suc- 
cessive stages of its history were elaborately re- 
hearsed. The constitution dates back to the first 
territorial legislature which submitted to the peo- 
ple the question of calling a constitutional conven- 
tion. Fifteen months afterwards — a period ample 
for mature consideration — they respond favora- 
bly at the polls. After a lapse of three months 
the question reaches the second territorial legisla- 
ture, which "bows to the will of the people and 
provides for the election of delegates." Then 
between the legislative sanction and the election 
of delegates four months intervene. Before the 
delegates meet and enter upon their duties a fur- 
ther delay of three months occui"s. They submit 
a single but vital article of the constitution to 
the people for acceptance or rejection, Decem- 
ber 21st, and they ratify it almost unanimously. 
"When we view these proceedings of the peo- 



234 KANSAS. 

pie of Kansas," said Senator Polk, of Missouri, 
"in forming for themselves a state constitution, 
in tlie successive stages of their development, 
not from the low arena of partisan strife and pas- 
sion, but from the elevated standpoint of a pa- 
triot, . . . what a majestic spectacle is presented 
— the people marching forward in stately pace 
to the accomplishment of their purposes with a 
movement as grand as the lapse of the tide or the 
travel of a planet ! " 

Though there could be no real question that 
the Lecompton constitution was not " the act and 
deed " of the people of Kansas ; though Douglas 
and other Northern Democrats fought it, yet it 
passed the Senate March 23d by a vote of thirty- 
three to twenty-five. In the House the Lecomp- 
ton constitution failed. There a substitute was 
carried, known as the " Crittenden-Montgomery 
bill," which referred it back to the people. Should 
they ratify it, then Kansas would be proclaimed a 
state within the Union without further ado. If 
they voted it down, they were to call a new con- 
vention and make a constitution that pleased them 
better. The sharp-eyed " Democratic Review " 
did not fail to call attention to the fact that in 
espousing the Crittenden-Montgomery bill Re- 
publican congressmen accepted the doctrine of 
popular sovereignty. It was the same doctrine 
which they stigmatized in 1854-56 " as an outrage 
upon public honor, ... as a departure from juGtice 



THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE. 235 

and from the original policy of the national gov- 
ernment." 

The Senate rejected the substitute, and there 
was resort to a committee of conference : J. S. 
Green, R. M. T. Hunter, and W. H. Seward rep- 
resenting the Senate ; W. H. English, A. H. 
Stephens, and W. A. Howard the House. This 
committee — Seward and Howard dissenting — 
elaborated a novel measure called the " English 
bill." An ordinance accompanied the Lecomp- 
ton constitution which asked the cession of land- 
grants which were much larger than any other 
state had ever received on its entrance into the 
Union. In these land-grants the committee sug- 
gested a change. They proposed to reduce the 
twenty-three million acres of land claimed to 
about one sixth of that amount. The fate of the 
constitution they linked with that of the land- 
grants. To accept the modified ordinance was 
accounted by some curious doctrine of imputation 
as approval of the constitution, and at once clothed 
Kansas with the functions of a state. Rejection 
of it, on the other hand, involved not only rejec- 
tion of the constitution, but continuance of terri- 
torial conditions until a population of ninety-four 
thousand should be reached. The majority re- 
port, which stoutly denied that any such thing as 
submission of the Lecompton constitution to the 
people lurked in this unhackneyed device, was a 
very excellent piece of quibbling. The constitu- 



236 KANSAS. 

tion we accept, its validity we acknowledge, it was 
urged, but we do not like the ordinance. We are 
willing to waive the population rule, provided the 
vexatious business can be concluded. If Kansas 
should reject our overture, it may remain a ter- 
ritory until better manners are learned and a 
larger and more stable population is obtained. 

Though objections were plenty — charges of un- 
warrantable discrimination, of intervention with 
inducements to control results, of violence to the 
principle of popular sovereignty — yet the English 
bill gave the people of Kansas opportunity to put 
their heel on the odious Lecompton instrument, 
and that consideration carried it through Congress. 
The vote of the Senate stood, ayes, thirty-one; 
nays, twenty -two — of the House, ayes, one hun- 
dred and twelve ; nays, one hundred and three. 
Pro-slavery partisans espoused it ; not all of them 
heartily. " I confess my opinion was," said Sen- 
ator Hammond, of South Carolina, in a speech 
October 29th, 1858, at Barnwell Court House, 
" that the South herself should kick that [Le- 
compton] constitution out of Congress. But the 
South thought otherwise." In Kansas the ques- 
tion came to a decision August 2d. Thirteen thou- 
sand and eighty-eight votes were cast — eleven 
thousand three hundred of them against the Eng- 
lish proposition. 



CHAPTER XL 

JAYHAWKING. 

Geographically the capital events of Kansas 
history in the territorial days covered a narrow 
space. With Lawrence for a centre, the revolu- 
tion of a radius thirty miles in length would in- 
clude them all. Yet the Southeast, embracing 
Bourbon, Linn, and Miami counties, though con- 
tributing little to the ultimate results of the strug- 
gle, is not destitute of picturesque and sanguinary 
exhibitions of border lawlessness. 

At the outset, and for a considerable period, pro- 
slavery settlers had a comparatively clear field in 
the Southeast, as it lay off the line of Northern 
immigration. " It has occurred to our friends," a 
correspondent of the Kansas Association of South 
Carolina wrote from Platte City, Missouri, " that 
it would be better, as a matter of policy, and as 
being more Southern — more agreeable to the 
Southern emigrants — that a good portion of them 
would settle south of the Kansas River. By this 
means we will secure the southern half of the ter- 
ritory before it is filled by abolitionists ; the north- 
ern half will be saved by Missourians. ... I 



238 KANSAS. 

would suggest that you should seek, as far as pos- 
sible, to induce all who have a small number of 
slaves to come out. To such, this is a peculiarly- 
desirable country, and they need have no fear of 
slaves escaping." Fort Scott — a federal military 
post from 1842 to 1854 — was the principal town 
of the Southeast, and began to have some reputa- 
tion as a border-ruffian stronghold in 1856. The 
arrival of armed " settlers " from the South laid 
the foundation of that reputation which was largely 
increased afterwards by accessions from Lecomp- 
ton. 

As abolitionists were not plenty in the South- 
east, the Southerners at first found their opportu- 
nities for usefulness rather limited. But in Au- 
gust, 1856, the monotony was broken by news of 
General Reid's intended attack upon Osawato- 
mie. Ambitious to share in the glory of destroy- 
ing that town, a hundred and fifty men collected 
at Fort Scott and marched northward. When en- 
camped in Liberty township, eight or ten miles 
south of Osawatomie, they were surprised by a 
hundred free-state guerrillas just as they thought 
of dining. So rude and uncivil an invitation to 
fight could not be accepted, and the company fled 
in the greatest confusion, " leaving," as an eye- 
witness says, "their baggage and most of their 
horses, boots, coats, vests, hats, and a dinner ready 
cooked," not to mention a black flag on which was 
inscribed in red letters " Victory or Death." The 



JAYHAWKING. 239 

fugitives mostly fled toward Fort Scott, where 
tliey arrived in the middle of the night, fully 
persuaded that the abolitionists were at their 
heels. The town was roused. Panic-stricken men 
and women, believing it would be given over to 
fire and sword, wildly escaped anywhere chance 
or instinct might lead. Quite a large company 
took refuge in a cabin at considerable distance 
from the village. Soon rumors came that the 
work of slaughter and pillage had actually begun, 
and a scene of indescribable confusion followed. 
Englishmen, harried by Northern pirates, found 
consolation in the petition, " Good Lord, deliver 
us from the Danes ; " and why should not the aid 
of Heaven be invoked against Northern abolition- 
ists ? A season of prayer was suggested, and the 
ensuing devotions had no lack of fervor or unanim- 
ity. The alarm proved groundless. When day 
dawned the town was found to be safe, and no 
abolitionists could be seen. 

During the autumn of 1856 Indian Agent G. 
W. Clarke, with a picked-up gang of Missouri- 
ans, overran portions of Linn and Miami counties 
into which considerable Northern population had 
sifted. He threw down fences, destroyed crops, 
seized horses and cattle, burnt a few cabins, and 
occasionally drove an obnoxious settler out of 
the country. " Clarke's company," said one of the 
victims, " took everything they wanted, and I 
think they took what they did not want, to keep 



240 KANSAS. 

their hands in — had ribbons on their hats, side 
combs in their hair, and other things they did not 
need." An old soldier gave his impressions of the 
raid before the Strickler Commission: "I was 
in the Black Hawk war, and have fought in the 
wars of the United States, and have received two 
land-warrants from Washington City for my ser- 
vices, but I never saw anything so bad and mean 
in my life as I saw under General Clarke." 

Free-state men in the Southeast, comparatively 
isolated, having little communication with Law- 
rence, and consequently almost wholly without 
check, developed a successful if not very praise- 
worthy system of retaliation. Confederated at 
first for defense against pro-slavery outrages, but 
ultimately falling more or less completely into the 
vocation of robbers and assassins, they have re- 
ceived the name — whatever its origin may be — 
of jayhawkers.^ 

^ In Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms jayhawker is said 
to be a corruption of " Gay Yorker," a phrase applied to an 
eminent exemplar of the business. Colonel Jennison. A more 
plausible derivation traces the word to a dare-devil Irishman, by 
the name of Pat Devlin. One morning in the summer of 1856, 
a neighbor is said to have met him returning from a foraging 
expedition, laden with spoils. "Where have you been, Pat?" 
" Jayhawking," was the reply. " Jayhawking ? What 's that ? " 
" Well," continued the philological busih-ranger, " in the old coun- 
try we have a bird called the jayhawk, which kind o' worries its 
prey. It seemed to me as I was riding home that this was what 
I had been doing." As the evidence now stands, whatever lin- 
guistic honors accrue from the word " jayhawking " belong to 
Pat. 



JAYHAWKING. 241 

The best known leader in the jaj^hawking ep- 
isode is James Montgomery. Born in Ohio, a 
resident of Kentucky and Missouri for seventeen 
years, he reached Linn County in August, 1854, 
and thenceforth was a prominent figure in the 
affairs of the Southeast. He was courageous, an 
effective talker — a qualification that served him 
to good purpose — not devoid of craft and strat- 
agem, but without large mental or executive force. 

Montgomery's tactics after Clarke's raid were 
characteristic. To obtain a list of the men con- 
cerned in it he visited Missouri in the disguise of 
a teacher searching for a school, which he suc- 
ceeded in obtaining and actually taught for two 
weeks — long enough to get the information he 
wished. That secured, the school suddenly closed, 
and the school-master soon reappeared transformed 
into a guerrilla chief. Twenty of the ex-raiders 
were captured and pretty thoroughly spoiled of 
money, weapons, and horses. 

Though months of disorder followed, yet, with 
the exception of the Marais des Cygnes massacre, 
Clarke's raid was the last considerable dash from 
Missouri into the territory until the outbreak of 
the war for the Union. In these aggressions jay- 
hawkers seem to have taken the lead, and they 
established a freebooting reputation that fairly in- 
timidated pro-slavery adherents. The accounts of 
marauding incursions from Missouri, which ap- 
peared in contemporary prints, were mostly ca- 

16 



242 KANSAS. 

iiards circulated by jaybawkers as an excuse for 
their own depredations. They occasionally dis- 
patched a messenger to Lawrence with a budget 
of exaggerated or manufactured pro-slavery out- 
rages, to keep alive their reputation as struggling, 
self-denying, afflicted patriots. 

Disturbances continued intermittently until 
December, 1857, when claim difficulties of more 
than ordinary consequence occurred. A delega- 
tion representing the jayhawking interest had 
been in Lawrence to enlist Lane in their cause, but 
he was absorbed with agitations against the Le- 
compton constitution, and could give them no per- 
sonal assistance. However, a small company from 
the vicinity of Lawrence, led by Captain J. B. 
Abbott, returned with the messengers, for the pur- 
pose of investigating affairs and of lending any 
assistance to free-state men that might be possible 
or advisable. Soon after their arrival in the vi- 
cinity of Fort Scott some land dispute came to a 
crisis. A Missourian was charged with " jump- 
ing " the claim of a free-state settler. Whether 
that was actually the case, or whether an enter- 
prising jayhawker wished to drive him out of the 
tei^itory as a step preparatory to seizing his prop- 
erty, is not wholly clear. At all events, the Mis- 
sourian was arrested and arraigned before an im- 
promptu squatters' court, the officers of which 
were mostly drawn from the Lawrence party. 
None of the usual judicial appurtenances — judge, 
counsel, sheriff, jury — were omitted. 



J A YHA WRING. 243 

Intelligence of the proceedings of this uncon- 
ventional court came to the ears of Federal Mar- 
shal Little at Fort Scott, and he sallied forth with 
a small armed escort on a reconnaissance. The 
court, hearing of his approach, suddenly aban- 
doned its judicial functions and prepared to fight. 
When the marshal appeared and asked for expla- 
nations he was assured, with all the gravity of 
truth-telling, that the legislature then in session 
had repealed the entire code framed at Shawnee 
Mission, that a provisional committee- had been 
appointed to conduct the government of the terri- 
tory until a new code could be framed, and that 
there was, consequently, nothing for him to en- 
force. 

The court successfully threw dust in the mar- 
shal's eyes, and he returned to Fort Scott. Soon 
discovering that he had been duped. Little gath- 
ered a second and larger expedition, and set out 
again, determined effectually to disbar the insolent 
attorneys. On his return there was a suitable 
preamble of parley. " Gentlemen," he said in a 
very black mood, " you will understand that you 
are dealing with the United States, and not with 
border ruffians. You will learn that there is a 
difference between them. I order you to surren- 
der and prepare to accompany me to Fort Scott." 
The court scouted the idea. Half an hour was 
allowed for reflection, with an intimation from 
Little that if the period of grace brought forth 



244 KANSAS. 

no works meet for repentance he should " blow 
them all to bell." At the expiration of thirty 
minutes — no signs of surrender appearing — the 
marshal ordered a charge upon the recent judi- 
ciary, members of which were partly intrenched 
in a log-cabin, and partly posted behind neigh- 
boring trees. A dozen Sharpe's rifles responded 
to the charge, and that spoiled all the fun in a 
twinkling. Numerous loungers and roughs, who 
accompanied the expedition as a fine lark, dis- 
liked the appearance of things, and the road to- 
ward Fort Scott smoked with the precipitation 
of their return. Rumors of the encounter blew 
about the territory with various exaggerations. 
Reinforcements hurried down from Lawrence. 
Marshal Little's force was considerably increased, 
but belligerents finally drew off, and there was no 
more fighting. 

In the spring of 1858 Captain Charles A. Ham- 
ilton surpassed all preceding guerrilla exploits by 
a deed "which the ibis and crocodile trembled 
at.'' Hamilton was a Georgian, of excellent fam- 
ily and reared in wealth. Restless and fond of 
adventure, his ear was caught by the Kansas cru- 
sade proclaimed in Georgia in 1856. He set- 
tled in Linn County and built a substantial log- 
house, which served as political headquarters for 
the vicinity. But Hamilton hardly maintained 
himself against the superior prowess of the jay- 
hawkers, and with the decline of the pro-slavery 



JA THA WKING. 245 

cause in the territory soured into desperation. 
He resolved that the victors should pay heavily 
for their success, and compiled a list of obnoxious 
men in his neighborhood wbom he planned to seize 
and execute. This death catalogue in some way 
fell into Montgomery's hands, who immediately 
took measures to kill the compiler. He caught 
him in his log-house, to which he laid siege, but 
was driven off by federal troops before he could 
effect his purpose. 

Then a lull followed, the opinion became gen- 
eral that Hamilton would not push his schemes of 
assassination, precautions were relaxed, and vig- 
ilance grew weary ; but it was a fatal calm, — 

" Like the dread stillness of condensing storms." 

Hamilton suddenly appeared in the neighbor- 
hood of Trading Post May 19th, 1858, with a 
gang of Missourians, and began to scour the region 
for his enemies, political and personal. He was 
particularly anxious to capture a certain resolute, 
saucy, belligerent blacksmith — Captain Eli Sny- 
der — with whom he had an altercation not long 
before. Snyder, armed with a shot-gun " loaded 
with sixteen buckshot," encountered Hamilton 
and one or two companions near Trading Post. 
A spirited colloquy followed. " Where are you 
going? " Hamilton demanded. "You are going 
to Trading Post." " If you know better than I 
do why do you ask ? " " If you don't look out, 



246 KANSAS. 

I '11 blow you through," growled the Georgian. 
Snyder leveled his shot-gun — " If you don't leave 
I '11 tumble you from your horse." The interview 
concluded abruptly. " I afterwards mentioned 
the affair to Old John Brown," said Snyder, " and 
he remarked — ' If you had killed Hamilton what 
a mangling up it would have saved ! The Dutch 
Henry business was at the right time ! ' " 

Hamilton, with a small detachment of his gang, 
gave personal attention to the capture of Black- 
smith Snyder whom he found at work in his shop. 
One of the visitors entered and made the colorless 
announcement — "A man wants to see you." Sny- 
der appeared — "Good morning, Mr, Hamilton." 
" I 've got you," hissed the cut-throat. " Yes — 
what do you want ? " retorted the blacksmith, 
striking one of the horses which were crowding 
around him a smart blow that threw all the pistols 
out of range, and enabled him to regain the shop, 
and secure his gun. Though severely wounded, 
Snyder managed to reach his cabin a few rods 
distant. His young son covered his retreat with 
a double-barreled shot-gun. "Burn the devils," 
he shouted, as the boy opened fire ; " cut away 
at them with the other barrel." The party re- 
tired in discomfiture. 

Elsewhere the desperadoes met with better suc- 
cess. Out of a considerable number of prisoners 
eleven were selected, marched off to a neighboring 
gulch, and drawn up in line before their captors. 



J A YHA WRING. 241 

*' Gentlemen," said one of the eleven, among whom 
there was no flinching or parleying, "if you are 
going to shoot, take good aim." " Ready," Ham- 
ilton shouted, but before he could speak the word 
" Fire," a repenting ruffian turned away, and said, 
with an oath — "I '11 have nothing to do with such 
a piece of business as this." Hamilton discharged 
his own pistol, and a general volley followed. The 
entire line of prisoners went down — five of them 
killed outright, five wounded, and one unharmed. 

The shocking affair produced a tremendous ex- 
citement far and wide. There was a hot, clatter- 
ing, idle pursuit of the assassins. Justice overtook 
but one of them, and that after a delay of five 
years. 

The authorities at Lecompton did not lay the 
responsibility for a state of things that culminated 
in the Marais des Cygnes assassinations wholly or 
chiefly at the door of pro-slavery men. At all 
events, soon after receiving intelligence of them. 
Governor Denver placed warrants in the hands of 
Deputy Marshal, Captain Samuel Walker for the 
arrest of Montgomery. When Walker reached 
Raysville, ten or fifteen miles northwest of Fort 
Scott, he found a large convention in session. 
" What are you after ? " asked an acquaintance 
under his breath. " I 've come down to take 
Montgomery." " You can't do it. That thing 's 
out of the question." The marshal concluded that 
it would be wise to keep his writs out of sight. 



248 KANSAS. 

" I don't know Montgomery," he said, " and I 
don't wish to have him pointed out. If he is, I 
shall have to make an effort to take him." 

The speaking, inflamed by the recent massacre, 
proceeded with furious energy. Nothing less than 
the extinction of Fort Scott — an infamous nest of 
border ruffianism which was at that moment shel- 
tering some of the Marais des Cygnes murderers — 
would pacify the convention. The authorities 
sent down sheriffs to arrest free-state men, but 
they shunned that vile robbers' den. The sneer 
brought Walker to his feet. He volunteered to 
serve any warrants in Fort Scott with which he 
might be furnished, and the proposal touched a 
popular chord. An unexpected difficulty threat- 
ened to frustrate the whole enterprise. Nobody 
could be found authorized to issue the necessary 
papers. " Get a common justice's writ," said 
Walker, " and I '11 go, though as a federal officer 
I have no business to serve it." 

Walker, escorted by Montgomery incognito, 
reached Fort Scott on the 30th, and proceeded 
at once to the house of G. W. Clarke, who, as 
leader of the Linn County raid in 1856 as well as 
for other reasons, had incurred great unpopular- 
ity in free -state quarters. The marslial vainly 
pounded upon the door with his fist, and then tried 
the butt of his pistol without eliciting any response. 
But the town was astir. The street swarmed 
with Clarke's friends armed to the teeth, while 



J A YEA WRING. 249 

Montgomery and his band were fully prepared for 
anything that might happen. Walker, having 
procui-ed some heavy iron implement from a gov- 
ernment wagon standing near, was about to renew 
his attack on the door when Clarke thrust his head 
from a window, and offered to surrender. In a few 
moments the door swung open, and he appeared 
curiously accoutred. His wife clung to one arm, 
and his daughter to the other, while in his hands 
there was an old-fashioned cavalry carbine. Very 
properly Clarke wished to examine the marshal's 
]iapers, which that gentleman declined to ex- 
hibit, since legally they were of no more account 
than a handful of pages plucked from the life 
of Jack the Giant Killer. " I '11 give you two 
minutes to surrender," thundered the marshal, 
drawing his pistol. " I heard the click of rifles 
about me," Walker relates, " as I covered Clarke 
with my revolver. There was a silence like death. 
Nobody said a word. Major Williams held his 
watch to count the time. I saw nothing except 
the ruffian before me. I was told that pro-slavery 
rifles were pointed at me while my escort aimed at 
Clarke. It was a mighty solemn state of affairs. 
The two minutes, I think, must have almost ex- 
pired when Clarke, white as a sheet, handed me 
his carbine." Walker afterwards arrested Mont- 
gomery himself, but all the prisoners managed to 
escape, and he returned to Lecompton empty- 
handed. 



250 KAI^SAS. 

The escort retired in a soured, disappointed 
frame of mind. A dramatic tableau which dis- 
solved and left no rack of vengeance behind — 
whatever may be said of it from a scenical point 
of view — failed to satisfy the matter-of-fact jaj'^- 
hawkers. They projected a second expedition, 
hoping to retrieve thereby the inconsequence of 
the first. On the night of June 6tli, Montgomery 
made a descent upon the town. Quietly securing 
the sentinels before they could raise an alarm, he 
applied the torch to some of the public buildings 
and retreated to a neighboring ravine. An alarm 
was shortly raised, and citizens hurriedly collected 
to extinguish the conflagration, when the maraud- 
ers skulking in the ravine opened fire. Never was 
a crowd taken more completely by surprise or dis- 
persed more precipitately, though replying to the 
attack, when some covert had been reached, with 
an irregular, spluttering fusillade. The attempted 
incendiarism did not prosper. It accomplished 
nothing beyond a little blackening and charring. 
A lively scare, houses fire -stained and bullet- 
marked, an interesting exhibition of helter-skel- 
tering — such is the summai'y of results. 

Finally, Governor Denver, accompanied by Gov- 
ernor Robinson, made a tour through the South- 
east, with a view to composing, by personal 
intervention, the difficulties which had so long 
distracted it. They visited different points and 
were kindly received. On the 14th of June the 



JA YHA WRING. 251 

trip reached a sort of climax at Fort Scott, where 
there was a large mass-meeting and full service of 
speeches. Governor Denver made a conciliatory 
address. " I shall treat actual settlers," he said, 
" without regard to former differences. I do not 
propose to dig up or review the past. Both par- 
ties, I believe, have done wrong and are worthy 
of censure, but I shall let all that go. My mis- 
sion is to secure peace for the future." The 
governor suggested the election of new county 
officers, the patrolling . of the border by federal 
troops, delay in the execution of old writs until 
they should pass the ordeal of competent judicial 
tribunals, and the dispersion of all guerrilla bands. 
These measures received general approval, and 
introduced a few weeks of comparative repose. 

Shortly after Governor Denver's peace-making 
tour Old John Brown, absent for some months, 
reappeared in Kansas — an untranquilizing event. 
Treachery on the part of a confidant led to post- 
ponement of the contemplated Virginia campaign, 
and his return was a feint to throw the public off 
the scent. During his absence in the East Brown 
was able, with the assistance of friends, to put his 
family, which remained at North Elba, New York, 
on a more comfortable footing than had been 
their fortune. 

" For one thousand dollars cash," he wrote Mr. Law- 
rence from New Haven, Conn., March 19th, 1857, " I am 
offered an improved piece of land, which, . . . might 



252 KANSAS. 

enable my family, consisting of a wife and five minor 
children (the youngest not yet three years old), to pro- 
cure a subsistence should I never return to them ; my 
wife being a good economist and a real old-fashioned 
business woman. She has gone through the two past 
winters in our open, cold house ; unfinished outside and 
not plastered. ... I have never hinted to any one else 
that I thought of asking for any help to provide in any 
such way for my family. ... If you feel at all inclined 
to encourage me in the measure I have proposed I shall 
be grateful to get a line from you. ... Is my appeal 
right?" 

John Brown's final visit to Kansas lasted about 
six months. That interval he spent mainly in the 
Southeast. On his way thither he stopped in 
Lawrence and had a talk with Governor Robin- 
son — " You have succeeded," he said, " in what 
you undertook. You aimed to make of Kansas a 
free state, and your plans were skillfully laid for 
that purpose. But I had another object in view. 
I meant to strike a blow at slavery." 

In the Southeast Brown attempted nothing of 
importance, except an expedition across the Mis- 
souri line in December, which resulted in the de- 
struction of considerable property, the liberation 
of eleven slaves, and the death of a slave-owner. 
The raid caused great excitement, especially in 
Missouri, and resulted in legislative action, which 
brought the territorial jayhawking era substanti- 
ally to a close. During the autumn Governor 



JAYHAWKING. 253 

Stewart, of Missouri, opened correspondence with 
Governor Denver and with President Buchanan 
in regard to the troubles. He informed Denver 
that it might be " necessary to station an armed 
force along the border, in Missouri, for purposes 
of protection." Governor Denver promised to 
leave nothing undone to suppress the outrages, 
but hoped that it might not be necessary for Mis- 
souri to put an armed force into the field. August 
9th Governor Stewart wrote President Buchanan 
that he had ordered a body of militia into Cass 
and Bates counties, because they " have been sub- 
jected to the repeated depredations of one or more 
marauding parties from the territory of Kansas, 
in consequence of which there is no security for 
either life or property. Citizens of Missouri have 
been driven from their homes, their property 
taken or destroyed, and their farms laid waste ; 
and without the protection of an armed force our 
citizens have not dared to return to their homes 
to reside." These measures allayed the disorders, 
and there was no further serious trouble until 
Brown's raid. January 6th, 1859, Governor Stew- 
art sent a message to the Missouri legislature, 
asking that steps be taken for redressing the 
outrage. He also transmitted memorials from 
thirty-five citizens of Bates and Vernon counties 
to the effect that there is " a regularly organized 
band of thieves, robbers, and midnight assassins 
. . . upon the western border of our county," beg- 



254 KANSAS. 

ging him " to take into consideration the accom- 
panying affidavits of citizens . . . who have been 
robbed and outraged at their homes by a band of 
lawless men from the territory of Kansas, sup- 
posed to be headed by the notorious Brown and 
Montgomery ; and also the terrible situation of 
the family of the late and lamented David Cruise, 
who has been foully murdered in the bosom of 
his family by these desperadoes." A bill was in- 
troduced into the state senate authorizing the em- 
ployment of a military force to patrol the border, 
but referred to the committee on federal relations, 
who made a singularly dispassionate and sensible 
report covering the whole subject of border dif- 
ficulties. 

" We doubt not," said the committee, " that at least 
ninety-nine out of every hundred of the citizens of Kan- 
sas deplore the events under consideration. . . . The 
people of Kansas and Missouri are most intimately con- 
nected, not only by geographical lines, but by the tender 
cords of kindred. We are the same people, impelled 
by the same interest, and bound for the same manifest 
destiny. . . . Even if this difficulty be winked at by 
Kansas . . . we would earnestly recommend the trial 
of every honorable means of reconciliation before a re- 
sort to extreme measures. . . . We would act with great 
caution and consideration. ... If ... an army be sta- 
tioned along the line of our frontier for the avowed pur- 
pose of protecting our border from incursions from a 
neighboring territory, it will do a greater injury to the 



JAYHAWKING. 255 

cause of liberal principles and confederated government 
than almost any other conceivable calamity. . . . This 
bill . . . provides that these troops are to be raised alone 
from the counties on the border ; taken from the midst 
of a people already exasperated by the murder and rob- 
bing of their kindred and neighbors. Companies formed 
out of such material would be hard to restrain from acts 
of summary punishment, should any of these despera- 
does fall into their hands ; and it would likewise be diffi- 
cult to teach such troops the line of our jurisdiction, and 
in the excitement of inflicting a merited punishment 
on some offender it would be hard for them to compre- 
hend the deplorable evils attending an armed invasion 
of a sister territory by the militia of a state." " [We] 
are not insensible of the obligations of the state to pro- 
tect all her citizens . . . [but] we are most unwilling 
that the state should run wild in the remedies applied. 
We have evidence of the most satisfactory character 
that outrages almost without a parallel in America, at 
least, have been perpetrated upon the persons and prop- 
erty of unoffending citizens of Bates and Vernon coun- 
ties — their houses plundered and then burned — their 
negroes kidnapped in droves — citizens wounded and 
murdered in cold blood." 

The committee did not recommend the use of a 
military force to disperse the outlaws " that have 
congregated in the southern portion of the terri- 
tory of Kansas for the last two years." They 
advise that rewards should be offered for the ar- 
rest of jayhawking leaders, and that circuit judges 
should hold special terms in the disturbed districts 



256 KANSAS. 

at wliich grievances miglit be investigated and re- 
dressed — rational suggestions, smoking with far 
less passion than might have been anticipated, 
which the legislature wisely adopted. Governor 
Stewart put a price of three thousand dollars on 
Old John Brown's head, but to no purpose. He 
successfully piloted the eleven liberated bondmen 
northward, and saw Kansas no more. 

During the summer of 1859 better days fairly 
began in the lawless, turbulent, freebooting South- 
east. It could not be expected that long-estab- 
lished guerrilla habits would instantly lose their 
charm and power. In spite of all repressive in- 
fluences — federal, territorial, Missoui-ian — their 
decline was gradual. While it may be rash to 
speak with confidence on a matter where so much 
confusion, blur, and conflict of testimony still ex- 
ists, yet the conclusion seems to be forced that in 
comparison with the Missourians, whose sins are 
black enough, jayhawkers, were the superior dev- 
ils. But in 1859 out of subsiding anarchy there 
rose a crude, rudimental order. At all events, 
the people so far believed in the actual establish- 
ment of peace that they devoted the 4th of July 
to its celebration. Ancient enemies then took 
vows of amity at Fort Scott, and promised to 
raze out of memory all belligerent records and 
begin anew. 



CHAPTER XIL 

CLOSE OF THE TEKEITOELAL PERIOD. 

In the town of Lawrence, on the eighth day of 
January, 1858, there was an unwonted spectacle. 
The territorial legislature had repaired thither 
from Lecompton and the state legislature from 
Topeka, that these bodies, once divided by deadly 
feuds, might freely and amicably confer together 
on matters of common interest. A revival of the 
transfusion project, ineffectually broached during 
the administration of Governor Geary, was the 
business which called for these unusual facilities 
of intercourse. The state legislature still dreamed 
of some cross-cutting path into the Union. It still 
regarded the territorial legislature, though reha- 
bilitated and purged of the old leaven, as " an 
obstacle to the successful execution of the will of 
the people," — requested it to disperse, to vote 
itself out of existence, and transfer all its rights 
and prerogatives to the state organization. 

The plan did not commend itself to the territo- 
rial body. In the uncertainties of the situation, 
as the issue of congressional agitations could not 
be forecast, it would have been palpably impolitic 
17 



258 KANSAS. 

to abandon the only law-making assembly recog- 
nized by tbe federal authorities. 

J'rom this rebuff the Topeka legislature never 
rallied. After lingering in Lawrence for a time, 
■with futile hopes of a more favorable response to 
its overtures, it adjourned until the 4th of March. 
The organization served a most important pur- 
pose, but its mission had been accomplished. 
When it reassembled there was no quorum. The 
few free-state men, who clung to it with misspent 
fidelity, printed a plaintive valedictory rehearsing 
the fortunes of the defunct government, lauding 
the admirable constancy to principle illustrated in 
themselves, and dispersed. 

The territorial legislature was now in undis- 
puted mastery of the situation. Yet, though 
revolutionized in political composition, the quality 
of its political morality showed little betterment. 
The record which it made was worse than indif- 
ferent, especially in the matter of a new capital 
and constitutional convention. In Lecompton, 
founded by the pro-slavery party, the sensitive 
assembly did not feel at home, and resolved to go 
elsewhere. A town called Minneola was projected 
in Franklin County. But the decisive considera- 
tions stirring in the affair were neither sentimen- 
tal nor patriotic. Thirty -five of the fifty -two 
members of the legislature were financially inter- 
ested in the venture. Under such circumstances 
it was to be expected that a bill transferring the 



CLOSE OF THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD. 259 

capital from Lecoinpton to Minneola would easily 
survive the governor's veto. When the removal 
began to be agitated Minneola was a stretch of 
mi touched prairie. Not a building of any sort 
existed on the proposed site of it ; nothing was 
there except "prairie grass, bugle -brush, and 
weeds." In a few weeks a big, barn-like structure, 
designed for a capitol, and one or two other build- 
ings were hastily and rudely flung together. The 
enterprise looked feasible — at least as a financial 
investment. But Governor Denver refused to 
leave Lecompton, or to allow a transfer of the 
records and public documents. Attorney General 
Black pronounced the whole scheme unconstitu- 
tional ; and this adverse decision remanded the 
ambitious town -site of Minneola into common 
prairie. 

Nor did the effort for a new constitution prosper. 
The bill authorizing a convention failed to pass 
the legislature until the thirty-seventh day of the 
session, which was limited by law to forty days. 
Governor Denver concluded there had been con- 
stitution-making enough for the present, and re- 
solved to call a truce in that disquieting business. 
The Lecompton constitution was still vexing Con- 
gress. Irreconcilables were not wanting who clung 
to the Topeka movement, and Denver decided to 
kill the bill. This he was able to do, as the organic 
law permitted an absolute veto of legislation which 
reached him within three days of the enforced ad- 



^60 KANSAS. 

journment. But legislators, who originated the 
enterprise of removing the capital to JNIinneola, 
could not be thwarted by any such trifle as the 
pocketing of a bill. Just before the close of the 
session, Governor Denver received what purported 
to be the bill calling the constitutional convention, 
officially indorsed as having been passed over his 
veto. He sent for the presiding officers of the 
legislature, and exhibiting the spurious document 
asked, "Who's responsible for this?" "Lane 
suggested it," was the reply. " It is not the orig- 
inal bill," the governor continued. " That is still 
in my hands — has never been out of them. This 
bill is a forgery. Now I can make trouble for you 
if I choose to do it. You have certified to what 
is not true. The whole statement is false. But 
I have no wish to keep up the agitation. Two 
courses are open to you — either to give me a paper 
setting forth the fact that the original bill was 
never returned to the legislature with my objec- 
tions, and hence never passed over my veto, or to 
destroy this counterfeit document here in my pres- 
ence." "What shall we do with it?" the chief 
clerk asked. " Destroy it," the Speaker of the 
House promptly replied. The document was torn 
in pieces and thrust into the stove. 

That a bill should survive such an ordeal was 
probably unprecedented, but this hardy bill did 
survive it. The legislature voted unanimously 
that it had passed that body in due form. March 



CLOSE OF THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD. 261 

9tli there was an election of delegates to a con- 
stitutional convention, which assembled at Min- 
neola Tuesday, the 23d. But the jobbery and 
other discreditable facts clouding the whole 
movement got noised abroad and excited great 
indignation. For a time the " Minneola swindle" 
fairly divided curses with the " Lecompton swin- 
dle." No sooner had the convention reached 
Minneola and effected a temporary organization, 
than a violent debate sprang up over the question 
whether it should not immediately adjourn to 
some other place. The discussion raged until five 
o'clock Wednesday morning, when the convention 
did adjourn to Leavenworth. There another con- 
stitution was formed, which abandoned the once 
popular "free white state" doctrine, and con- 
fronted the intense pro - slavery doctrines of 
Lecompton with an anti-slavery utterance no less 
unqualified. 

But the Leavenworth constitution was too heav- 
ily weighted for success. When submitted to the 
people May 18th, only about four thousand ballots 
were cast, and one fourth of them in the negative. 
The stigma of its origin destroyed an otherwise 
excellent constitution. 

Governor Denver, who accepted his post re- 
luctantly and with the intention of retiring from 
it as soon as practicable, resigned October 10th, 
and was succeeded by Samuel Medary, of Ohio. 
Denver is the first among the territorial governors 
whose resignation was not practically forced. 



262 KANSAS. 

The fourth territorial legislature convened Jan- 
uary 3d, 1859. In comparison with preceding 
legislatures it presents a tame and uneventful rec- 
ord. The most laborious task which it attempted 
was the codification of the statutes. The enact- 
ments of 1855 were repealed in bulk, and as that 
act did not fully express public sentiment in refer- 
ence to them, they were publicly burnt in the 
streets of Lawrence. The general laws of 1857 
were repealed, and those of 1858 liberally revised. 
Undeterred by the experiences of former assem- 
blies, the legislature also made provision for 
another constitutional convention. The question 
of calling this body was submitted to the people, 
who cast five thousand three hundred and six 
affirmative, and one thousand four hundred and 
twenty - five negative, votes. Delegates were 
chosen June 7th — thirty-five Republicans and 
seventeen Democrats. 

At this election a Republican party appeared 
in the territory for the first time. The free-state 
party was an isolated, independent organization, 
wholly dedicated to a local mission. It avoided out- 
side alliances lest they should distract and enfeeble 
its energies. Though its record is not ideal, though 
the odious black law sentiments enunciated at Big 
Springs and reaffirmed when the Topeka govern- 
ment was commissioned were strangely out of 
harmony with its general purposes, yet the party 
never faltered in its hostility to Southern institu- 



CLOSE OF THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD. 263 

tions. But the question of the domestic institu- 
tions of Kansas was now settled. The organization 
had fulfilled its special mission, and the necessity 
for isolation no longer existed. A convention at 
Lawrence November 11th, 1857, discussed and 
negatived propositions to merge the free-state party 
in the Republican party. May 18th, 1858, the 
free-state combination went to pieces upon the or- 
ganization of the Republican party at Osawato- 
mie. 

The Missouri faction was known by a variety 
of names. At first it styled itself tlie pro-slavery 
party. As the chances that Kansas would not 
adopt Southern institutions increased, the epithet 
" pro-slavery " became unpopular, and was ex- 
changed for " law and order." But the revised 
title had only a brief currency, and the party 
finally rested its pursuit of a name in the phrase 
— " The National Democracy of Kansas." 

These changes in the constitution and nomen- 
clature of political organizations betokened a sub- 
sidence of party animosities. So strong was the 
disposition to bury the past that it ultimately 
took the shape of a general amnesty act, which dis- 
missed all prosecutions growing out of " political 
differences of opinion," and, as a consequence, a 
good many people breathed freer. 

The constitutional convention met at Wyan- 
dotte July 5th with a membership largely com- 
posed of new men. Few of the leaders who fig- 



264 KANSAS. 

ured at Topeka, or Lecompton, or Leavenworth 
were at Wyandotte. The convention fell to work 
with as much freshness and zeal as if no similar 
body had ever broken ground in Kansas, and after 
a session of three or four weeks produced a fairly 
good instrument. In the matter of the elective 
franchise it retreated from the radicalism of Leav- 
enworth, which conferred the right of suffrage 
upon " every male citizen of the United States," 
and adopted the language of Topeka, " every 
white male person." October 4th, 1859, the peo- 
ple ratified the constitution by a majority of four 
thousand eight hundred and ninety-one, in a total 
vote of fifteen thousand nine hundred and fifty- 
one. On the 6th of December Charles Robinson 
was elected governor, J. P. Root lieutenant-gov- 
ernor, and M. F. Conway representative to Con- 
gress. 

The debate in Congress on the Wyandotte con- 
stitution lacked the bitterness and violence of ear- 
lier discussions when Kansas was the topic. Sen- 
ator Wigfall revived a dialect popular in the 
Lecompton days. " I will not consent," he said, 
"that Texas. shall associate herself with such a 
state as this [Kansas] would be. . . . The in- 
habitants of that so-called state are outlaws and 
land-pirates. The good men were abandoned by 
the government and were driven out. Rufiianism 
is all that is left, and are we to associate with 
it ? " But outbursts of this sort were infrequent. 



CLOSE OF THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD. 265 

The opposition, led by Green, of Missouri, despair- 
ing of ultimate success, now expended its strength 
in retarding and deferring the entrance of the ob- 
noxious territory into the Union. There was 
much criticism of the proposed boundaries, as the 
Missouri senator insisted that not more than two 
sevenths of the area included within them could 
be cultivated, though the western line had been 
moved eastward to the twenty-fifth meridian. He 
urged that thirty thousand square miles should be 
taken from Southern Nebraska and annexed to 
the projected state. " Without this addition . . . 
Kansas," he said, " must be weak, puerile, sickly, 
in debt, and at no time capable of sustaining her- 
self ! " 

After more than four years of fruitless endeavor 
Kansas entered the Union. January 21st, 1861, 
senators of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi an- 
nounced the secession of these states and their 
own retirement from Congress. The election of 
Abraham Lincoln as president furnished a con- 
venient pretext for revolt. " It has been a belief," 
said Jefferson Davis, " that we are to be deprived 
in the Union of the rights . . . our fathers be- 
queathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into 
her present decision. . . . When you deny them, 
and when you deny to us the right to withdraw 
from a government which, thus perverted, threat- 
ens to be the destruction of our rights, we but 
tread the path of our fathers when we proclaim 
our independence and take the hazard." 



266 KANSAS. 

The defiant Southern valediction was barely fin- 
ished when Senator Seward called up the bill for 
the admission of Kansas. With their depleted 
ranks the opposition could now offer only a feeble 
resistance, and it passed by a vote of thirty-six to 
sixteen. The House had already taken favorable 
action, and on the 28th of January concurred in 
Senate amendments. It was with memorable dra- 
matic fitness that Kansas, the arena where the hos- 
tile civilizations met, should enter the Union just 
as the defeated South drew off from it. 

The news reached Lawrence late at night. 
Territorial officials, members of the legislature, 
which was in session there, and people in gen- 
eral were roused, and there followed an impromptu 
-jollification, to which buckets of whiskey, freely 
circulated, lent inspiration. The next day saw a 
more formal and decorous celebration. One hun- 
dred guns were fired, making noisy proclamation 
across the prairies that Kansas had at last become 
a state. 

The struggle for the possession of Kansas, the 
loss of which to the South made secession a cer- 
tainty, was essentially political and constitutional 
— not military. The few skirmishes that took 
place have a secondary if not tertiary importance. 
In the field of diplomacy and finesse the pro-slav- 
ery leaders were outgeneraled. Reckoning too 
confidently and disdainfully on numbers, on near- 
ness to the theatre of operations and federal sup- 



CLOSE OF THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD. 267 

port, they also blundered in underrating their op- 
ponents, and in adopting consequently a policy 
of noise and bluff. They came thundering into 
the territory on the 30th of March, 1855, when 
quieter measures would have served their pur- 
poses far better. The dash upon the Wakarusa 
turned out to be a fool's errand. In the sack of 
Lawrence and the dispersion of the Topeka legis- 
lature, victories were won which returned to 
plague the victors. The career of the free-state 
party, under the lead of Governor Robinson, who 
projected and inspired the whole tactical plan of 
its operations, has no parallel in American his- 
tory. Composed of heterogeneous, clashing, fever- 
ish elements ; repudiating the territorial legisla- 
ture and subsisting without legislation — an inter- 
mediate condition of virtual outlawry — from the 
settlement of Lawrence until 1858, the party was 
not only successfully held together during this 
chaotic period, but by a series of extraordinary ex- 
pedients, by adroitly turning pro-slavery mistakes 
to account, and by rousing Northern sympathy 
through successful advertisement of its calamities, 
rescued Kansas from the clutch of Missouri, and 
then disbanded. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

DTJEING THE WAR FOE, TEffi UNION. 

The border storm blew down the loosely-rooted 
prosperities of the territory with sufficient havoc. 
For the most part the early immigrants were 
poor. A laudable ambition to mend their worldly 
fortunes blended with ethical and political con- 
victions in their westward venture. Though the 
cause of liberty prospered, and slavery was driven 
from the debatable ground, yet, at the close of the 
struggle, the rudenesses, discomforts, and limita- 
tions of the frontier remained with faintly miti- 
gated severity. Strength and enterprise that 
might have built comfortable homes, improved 
farms, and established public institutions, had 
been diverted to politics. The domestic expe- 
riences of the Kansas pioneers during the terri- 
torial days, subordinated in this volume to their 
political concerns, are full of interest. Under the 
most favorable circumstances, frontier life has 
plenty of disagreeable, slowly bettering elements. 
" Sleeping on the ground," wrote a pioneer in 
1856, " is not confined to camping out, but is 
extensively practiced in all our cabins. Floors 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 269 

are a luxury rarely seen here [in Wabaunsee]. 
In our own dwelling, part of the inmates rest on 
the earth, while others sleep on sacking stretched 
between the timbers over our heads, access to 
which is only to be had by climbing up on the 
logs constituting the sides of the cabin. I no- 
ticed yesterday a member of our family making 
up his bed with a hoe ! " Everj^thing was on a 
primitive basis. Land had been preempted in 
larger or smaller amounts and a rudimentary agri- 
culture attempted. Horses, cattle, pigs, fowls — 
an easy, inviting prey for raiders of every sort 
— gradually increased. Food was always plain, 
sometimes scanty, and occasionally unique. " We 
have a pie on the table, the first of any kind I 
have seen since our arrival, made of sorrel and 
sweetened wdth molasses." Unconventional fron- 
tier habits of dress were in vogue. Among the 
nearly five hundred persons who presented claims 
for damages before the auditing commission of 
1859, very few included items of clothing. One 
unpractical mortal brought to the territory a 
large assortment of dress coats, white velvet and 
satin vests, trousers, calf -skin boots, and gloves. 
The wardrobe disappeared when the Missourians 
sacked Lawrence in 1856, and some of the finery 
which attracted Mr. Gladstone's attention on 
their return to Kansas City doubtless came from 
it. " I frequently spoke to Southmayd," said a 
witness before the claims commission, " about 



270 KANSAS. 

having so much good clothing in this country ! " 
Socially there was an utter democracy — no high- 
est, no lowest. Everybody stood on the same 
plane. For amusements the settlers were left en- 
tirely to their own resources. Lecturers, concert 
troupes, and shows never ventured so far into the 
wilderness. Yet there was much broad, rollick- 
ing, noisy merry-making, but it must be con- 
fessed that rum and whiskey — lighter liquors 
like wine and beer could not be obtained — had a 
good deal to do with it. In the larger towns 
" sprees " were by no means uncommon. Room 
No. 7 in the Eldridge House obtained a reputa- 
tion throughout the territory as a favorite place 
for carousals, where the uproar frequently con- 
tinued all night, as one party of roisterers suc- 
ceeded another. Outside of the villages inconven- 
iences and hardships were specially oppressive. 
A woman died in a country neighborhood. " The 
difficulty after her death was to provide a coffin. 
There were men who could make it, but no boards 
could be found. At last one person offered to use 
a part of the bottom of his wagon, another fur- 
nished the rest, and a box was put together." A 
constant back-flowing stream of disgusted settlers 
set eastward during the whole territorial period. 
Some of them gave a doleful account of the coun- 
try — reported Kansas not likely to " become a 
free or a slave state until all the rest of the woi'ld 
is over-peopled, for nobody that has strength to 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 271 

walk, or money to pay for conveyance, will stay 
there long. The earth ... is actually parched 
and burnt to the solidity of brick by the long 
droughts so that it cannot be plowed, and no vege- 
tation appears." Schools, churches, and the vari- 
ous appliances of older civilization got under way 
and made some growth, but they were still in a 
primitive, inchoate condition when Kansas took 
her place in the Union. 

The mischiefs which accompanied the strife of 
hostile civilizations within the territory were pro- 
longed and aggravated by a new woe. In 1860 
a great drought began. For more than a year 
little or no rain fell, and crops failed everywhere. 
Probably fifteen or twenty thousand peopfe were 
thrown upon public charity. Again Kansas put 
out signals of distress, to which the public made 
a quick and generous response. Provisions, cloth- 
ing, and money poured into the famished common- 
wealth — a magnificent largess that measurably 
relieved its calamities, though it did not prevent 
serious depopulation. 

Governor Robinson took the oath of office Feb- 
ruary 9th, 1861. He found himself at a post 
beset by an extraordinary complication of difficul- 
ties. April 15th President Lincoln called for 
seventy-five thousand volunteers to put down the 
Southern rebellion. Kansas was in a condition 
the most inopportune and unpromising for 9, fit- 
ting response. With the subsidence of domestic 



272 KANSAS. 

troubles military organizations generally went to 
pieces. The exchequer of a community whose six 
years of territorial broil concluded with a fam- 
ine could hardly be on a war footing. Yet Gov- 
ernor Robinson, in his message to the legislature, 
which met March 26th, said : " Kansas, though 
last and least of the states in the Union, will ever 
be ready to answer the call of her country." That 
promise was nobly kept. Governor Carney, the 
successor of Governor Robinson, writing Presi- 
dent Lincoln May 13th, 1864, could say : " Kansas 
has furnished more men according to her popula- 
tion to crush this rebellion than any other state 
in the Union." In all the great western cam- 
paigns Kansas soldiers made an honorable record. 
That record belongs to national rather than state 
history, and no effort will be made here to disen- 
tangle and isolate it for purposes of valuation. 

Governor Robinson was probably the first state 
executive to foreshadow the policy which the fed- 
eral authorities ultimately adopted in reference to 
slavery " A demand is made by certain states," 
he said in his message, " that new concessions and 
guaranties be given to slavery, or the Union must 
be destroyed. . . . If it is true that the continued 
existence of slavery requires the destruction of 
the Union, it is time to ask if the existence of the 
Union does not require the destruction of slaver5\ 
If such an issue be forced on the nation it must 
be met, and met promptly." 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 273 

The inevitable and legitimate difficulties which 
confronted Governor Robinson — embarrassments 
of poverty and of chaos — might well have stag- 
gered any man of ordinary nerve, but they were 
not the most formidable evils. After an exciting 
contest the legislature elected J. H. Lane and S. 
C. Pomeroy to the United States Senate. Lane 
celebrated his departure for Washington by laying 
aside the calf-skin vest and seal-skin coat, which 
had done service during the whole territorial era, 
and donning a respectable suit. On the realiza- 
tion of his long-cherished dream a crazy passion 
for power seized him — an ambition to absorb the 
entire civil and military functions of the state. 
Robinson stood squarely, if not defiantly, across 
his path. In the territorial struggle the natural 
antagonisms of these two men — antagonisms of 
temperament, method, and purpose — were cir- 
cumscribed and held in abeyance by the compul- 
sions of the situation — 

" As the wave breaks to foam on shelves, 
Then runs into a v?ave again." 

But now disguises and restrictions were flung off. 
Lane, inflamed by old grudges and new provoca- 
tions, by long-nursed hatreds and obstructions that 
crossed his plans, broke out into violent hostilities 
against Governor Robinson and his successor. By 
his overshadowing prestige at Washington he was 
able to wrest from them no small part of their 
legitimate gubernatorial functions. Lane's singu- 
la 



274 KANSAS. 

lar influence over Mr. Lincoln and the secretary of 
war, Mr. Stanton, is one of the most inexplicable 
and disastrous facts that concern Kansas in 1861- 
65. It was the source of the heaviest calamities 
that visited the commonwealth during that period, 
because it put him in a position to gratify mis- 
chievous ambitions, to pursue personal feuds, to 
assume duties and offices that belonged to others, 
to popularize the corruptest political methods, 
and to organize semi-predatory military expedi- 
tions. His conduct not only embarrassed the 
state executive and threw state affairs into con- 
fusion, but provoked sanguinary reprisals from 
Missouri. In 1864 Mr. Lincoln, remarking upon 
Lane's extraordinary career in Washington to 
Governor Carney, offered no better explanation 
of it than this : " He knocks at my door every 
morning. You know he is a very persistent fel- 
low and hard to put off. I don't see you very 
often, and have to pay attention to him." 

Lane's intrigues in Washington against the state 
administration prospered. Though recruiting was 
energetically pushed by the local authorities and 
three regiments were already in the field — the 
first and second obtaining honorable recognition 
for gallant conduct at the battle of Wilson's Creek, 
Missouri — yet in August Lane, technically a 
civilian, appeared in Kansas clothed with vague, 
but usurping military powers. He reached Leav- 
enworth on the 15th, and announced in a public 



DURING TEE WAR FOR THE UNION. 275 

address the extinction of all his personal and polit- 
ical enmities — a costly sacrifice laid on the altar 
of his country. Two days afterwards he set out 
for Fort Scott, where the Kansas brigade, compris- 
ing the Third and Fourth infantry together with 
the Fifth and Sixth cavalry regiments, was concen- 
trating to repel attacks upon the Southeast. He 
began his brief military career in this region by 
constructing several useless fortifications, among 
which the most considerable affair was Fort Lin- 
coln, on the Little Osage River, twelve miles north 
of Fort Scott. September 2d there was a skir- 
mish at Dry Wood Creek, Missouri, between a 
reconnoitring party and a force under the Con- 
federate General Rains, which was not wholly 
favorable to the Kansans, and caused a panic at 
Fort Scott. Leaving a body of cavalry with 
orders to defend the town as long as possible, and 
then fire it. Lane retired to his earth-works on 
the Little Osage. *' I am compelled to make a 
stand bere," he reported September 2d, after get- 
ting inside Fort Lincoln, "or give up Kansas to 
disgrace and destruction. If you do not hear from 
me again, you can understand that I am sur- 
rounded by a superior force." The Confederates 
did not follow up their advantage, but retreated 
leisurely toward Independence, Missouri. En- 
couraged by their withdrawal. Lane took the field 
on the 10th " with a smart little army of about 
fifteen hundred men" — reached Westport, Mis- 



276 KANSAS. 

souri, four days later, where he reported — " Yes- 
terday I cleaned out Butler and Parkville with 
my cavalry." September 22d he sacked and 
burned Osceola, Missouri — an enterprise in which 
large amounts of property and a score of inhab- 
itants were sacrificed. He broke camp on the 
27tli, and in two days reached Kansas City. The 
brigade converted the Missouri border through 
which the march lay into a wilderness, and reached 
its destination heavily encumbered with plunder. 
" Everything disloyal," said Lane, " . . . . must 
be cleaned out," and never were orders more lit- 
erally or cheerfully obeyed. Even the chaplain 
succumbed to the rampant spirit of thievery, and 
plundered Confederate altars in the interest of 
his unfinished church at home. Among the spoils 
that fell to Lane personally there was a fine car- 
riage, which he brought to Lawrence for the use 
of his household. 

From the first the local authorities, civil and mil- 
itary, had regarded the brigade with apprehension. 
"We are in no danger of invasion," Governor 
Robinson wrote General Fremont, commander of 
the Western Department, September 1st, "pro- 
vided the government stores at Fort Scott are sent 
back to Leavenworth, and the Lane brigade is 
removed from the border. It is true small par- 
ties of secessionists are to be found in Missouri, 
but we have good reason to know that they do 
not intend to molest Kansas . . . until Jackson 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 211 

shall be reinstated as governor of Missouri. In- 
deed, a short time since, when a guerrilla party- 
came over and stole some property from our cit- 
izens, the officers in command of the Confederates 
compelled a return of the property, and offered to 
give up the leader of the gang to our people for 
punishment. But what we have to fear, and do 
fear, is, that Lane's brigade will get up a war by 
going over the line, committing depredations, and 
then returning into our state. This course will 
force the secessionists to [retaliation] . . . and 
in this they will be joined by nearly all the Union 
men of Missouri. If you will remove the supplies 
at Fort Scott to the interior, and relieve us of the 
Lane brigade, I will guaranty Kansas from inva- 
sion . . . until Jackson shall drive you out of St. 
Louis." 

Captain Prince, in command at Fort Leaven- 
worth, wrote Lane September 9th : " I hope you 
will adopt active and early measures to crush out 
this marauding which is being enacted in Captain 
Jennison's name, as also [in] yours, by a band of 
men representing themselves as belonging to your 
command." When General Hunter took charge 
of the department in November the brigade, ac- 
cording to the report of Assistant Adjutant-Gen- 
eral C. G. Halpine, was " a ragged, half-armed, 
diseased, mutinous rabble, taking votes whether 
any troublesome or distasteful order should be 
obeyed or defied. . . . To remedy these things 



278 KANSAS. 

mustering officers were sent to remuster the reg- 
iments of Lane's brigade. . . . Had the depart- 
ment, as previously, been without troops from 
other states, there is every probability that a gen- 
eral mutiny . . . would have taken place instead 
of the partial mutinies which have been sup- 
pressed." The thieving, foot-pad, devastating ex- 
pedition of Lane's brigade did much to incite ani- 
mosities and reprisals, whose ghastly work sent a 
thrill of horror through the country. 

Lane made a furious harangue at Leavenworth 
October 8th in defense of his campaign. He wrote 
President Lincoln the next day : " I . . . suc- 
ceeded in raising and marching against the enemy 
as gallant and effective an army, in proportion to 
its numbers, as ever entered the field. Its opera- 
tions are a part of the history of the country. . . . 
Governor Charles Robinson . . . has constantly, 
in season and out of season, vilified myself and 
abused the men under my command as marauders 
and thieves." He suggested the formation of a 
new military department out of Kansas, the In- 
dian Territory, and portions of Arkansas, with 
himself as commander, and not less than ten 
thousand troops at his disposal. He would resign 
his seat in Congress and accept the military ap- 
pointment. In case the department should not be 
created, he saw only calamities ahead. " I will 
... be compelled to leave my command," he 
^"^>5on tinned, " quit the field, and most reluctantly 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 279 

become an idle spectator of the great struggle, 
and witness, I have no doubt, the devastation of 
my adopted state and the destruction of its peo- 
ple." 

In November Lane returned to Washington and 
at once entered upon fresh militaiy schemes. He 
projected an expedition, which he would lead in 
person from Fort Leavenworth into Arkansas and 
the Indian Territory — representing the move- 
ment as the result of conferences between himself 
and General Hunter. With this understanding, 
he obtained for it the approbation of President 
Lincoln and the War Department. Friends in 
Kansas sent on to Washington resolutions ap- 
plauding his military genius, and urging that the 
most ought to be made of it. Lane, said the 
"Leavenworth Conservative" "has every quality 
of mind and character which belonged to the histor- 
ical commanders. . . . There are no obstacles in 
his path, and to him a difficulty is simply a thing 
to be overcome." Refugee Indians at Fort Leav- 
enworth, driven from the teiritory by disloyal 
tribes, concurred in these sentiments. " General 
Lane is our friend," said two chiefs with sesquipe- 
dalian names in a communication to " Our Great 
Father the President of the United States." " His 
heart is big for the Indian. He will do more for 
us than any one else. The hearts of our people 
will be sad if he does not come. They will follow 
him wherever he directs. They will sweep the 



280 KANSAS. 

rebels before them like a terrible fire on the dry 
prairie." Lane unfolded his plans, shaped evi- 
dently by the recent experiences of his brigade, 
to General McClellan. He proposed to extir- 
pate disloyalty in Missouri and Arkansas. If 
conciliatory methods should not be successful, he 
would employ the most violent. " Sir, if I can't 
do better I will kill the white rebels, and give 
their lands to the loyal blacks ! " 

General Hunter received communications from 
the War Department in January, 1862, announcing 
that a Southern expedition, consisting of eight or 
ten thousand Kansas troops and four thousand 
Indians had been decided upon, and implying the 
existence of a definite, mutual understanding that 
Lane should have the chief command. These 
communications took Hunter by surprise, and in 
his perplexity he wrote General Halleck, who had 
succeeded General Fremont in command of the 
Western Department, for information : — 

" It seems . . . that Senator J. H. Lane has been 
trading at Washington on a capital partly made up of his 
own senatorial position, and partly of such scraps of in- 
fluence as I may have possessed in the confidence or es- 
teem of the president, said scraps having been 'jay- 
hawked ' by the Kansas senator without due consent of 
the proper owner. ... I find that ' Lane's great South- 
ern expedition ' was entertained by the president under 
misrepresentations ; . . . that said ' expedition ' was the 
joint design of Senator Lane and myself. . . . Never to 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 281 

this hour has he consulted me on the subject, directly or 
indirectly, while the authorities at Washington have pre- 
served a similar indiscreet reticence. . . . Thus I am 
left in ignorance, but ... I think it more than prob- 
able that the veil of mystery has been lifted in your 
particular case." 

Some weeks before receiving Hunter's letter, 
which was written February 8th, 1862, rumors 
reached Halleck that Lane would be commissioned 
brigadier-general, and he immediately forwarded 
a remonstrance to headquarters. " I cannot con- 
ceive a more injudicious appointment," he wrote 
General McClellan. " It will take twenty thou- 
sand men to counteract its effect in this state, 
and, moreover, is offering a premium for rascality 
and robbery." President Lincoln indorsed upon 
Halleck's communication, which was of consider- 
able length, and touched various topics — " an 
excellent letter ; though I am sorry General Hal- 
leck is so unfavorably impressed with General 
Lane." Concerning the " expedition " Halleck 
had no information aside from current rumors. 
Yet this unofhcial hearsay sufficed to rouse his 
indignation. " I protested " . . .he wrote Hun- 
ter February 13th, " against any of his [Lane's] 
jayhawkers coming into this department, and said 
positively that I would arrest and disarm every 
one I could catch." 

Lane reached Leavenworth January 26th in 
high spirits. But on the next day he met a sud- 



282 KANSAS. 

den and stinging rebuff. Without waiting for in- 
terview or explanation, without intimating to Lane 
what was impending, Hunter issued an order an- 
nouncing his purpose to command the " expedi- 
tion " in person. The unexpected turn of affairs 
nonplused Lane. He sent a telegram to Rep- 
resentative John Covode : " See the president, 
secretary of war, and General McClellan, and 
ansAver what I shall do." There was nothing to 
do except to retire or take a subordinate position. 
He succeeded, however, in breaking up the expe- 
dition. "I have been with the man you name," 
Covode telegraphed. " Hunter will not get the 
men or money he requires. His command cannot 
go forward. Hold on. Don't resign your seat." 
Lane followed Covode's advice and returned to 
Washington after addressing a public letter to the 
legislature, which had passed complimentary res- 
olutions : " I have been thwarted in the cher- 
ished hope of my life. The sad yet simple duty 
only remains to announce to you and througli you 
my purpose to return to my seat in the United 
States Senate." 

Lane's military intrigues reached their final 
stage in his appointment July 22d, 1862, as " Com- 
missioner for Recruiting in the Department of 
Kansas." He proceeded to organize regiments, 
completely ignoring the state authorities in whose 
hands the laws and the constitution placed the 
whole business. At this time he began to enlist 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 283 

colored men — probably the pioneer movement in 
that direction — protesting that "a nigger can 
stop a bullet as well as a white man." But Lane's 
scheme did not altogether succeed. Governor 
Robinson, who proposed to stand upon his con- 
stitutional rights, declined to commission the offi- 
cers whom Lane had appointed. The secretary 
of war telegraphed that if the state executive did 
not issue the commissions the War Department 
would. " You have the power to override the 
constitution and the laws," was the unconcilia- 
tory response ; " but j'ou have not the power to 
make the present governor of Kansas dishonor his 
own state." 

Another feature in the singular tangle was a 
formidable effort to crush Governor Robinson, 
whom the Lane politicians found intractable and 
difficult to manage. In the autumn of 1861 these 
gentry made an abortive effort to displace him 
on the ground that, by the provisions of the con- 
stitution, the term of state officers expired Jan- 
uary 1st, 1862. There was an election, but the 
courts pronounced it illegal. 

The failure of this first personal assault lent ad- 
ditional violence and venom to the second. Jan- 
uary 20th a resolution of inquiry concerning the 
sale of certain state bonds was offered in the leg- 
islature. The bonds in question had no quotable 
market value, and a sale was effected only through 
negotiations — evidently not ruled by the severest 



284 KANSAS. 

business maxims — with the Interior Department, 
which held, in trust, Indian funds for investment. 
It appeared tbat bonds to the amount of ninety- 
five thousand six hundred dollars were delivered, 
upon which the sum of fifty-five thousand dollars 
was paid ; that while the sale was effected at 
eighty-five per cent., only sixty per cent, reached 
the state treasury, notwithstanding the law de- 
clared that nothing less than seventy per cent, 
should be accepted. Here was a palpable viola- 
tion of the law, and the official upon whom it 
could be fastened, especially if he happened to be 
the governor, would fare badly. It is now well 
understood that the whole movement, which pro- 
ceeded from Lane, was aimed at Robinson. The 
prosecution had no wish to harm the auditor and 
secretary of state who went down in the fight. 

Though the committee of investigation ap- 
pointed by the House of Representatives discov- 
ered no evidence connecting the governor with 
the negotiation, they resolved to include him 
among the inculpated officials. They ventured 
their case on chances that the progress of the trial 
might bring out criminating facts. 

An intensity of excitement, unsurpassed even 
in the stormiest territorial days, convulsed the 
legislature when, on the 13th of February, the 
committee of investigation reported resolutions 
impeaching the auditor, the secretary of state, 
and the governor. On the next day a vote was 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 285 

reached, the resolutions passed unanimously, and 
there followed cheers long and loud. Why these 
law-makers applauded it would be difficult to say. 
They had not read the voluminous report upon 
which the resolutions were alleged to be based. 
If it were true that the executive had brought dis- 
grace upon the state and ought to be driven from 
office, that would be poor cause for any outbreak of 
jubilation. When at a later stage specific articles 
of impeachment against the governor came before 
the House the unanimity gave way, and seven 
representatives are on record as voting against 
them. So far as Robinson was concerned the 
prosecution broke down, and he was almost unan- 
imously acquitted, though a majority of the Sen- 
ate belonged to the Lane faction. 

That a rank growth of general freebooting 
should have sprung up in Kansas during the war 
was no more than might have been expected. 
The border naturally attracts men adapted to 
shine in this calling, and the territorial period 
afforded admirable training for the wider field 
of spoliation opened by the war for the Union. 
Early in the struggle an organization appeared 
known as " Red-legs," from the fact that its mem- 
bers affected red morocco leggings. It was a 
loose- jointed association, with members shifting 
between twenty-five and fifty, dedicated originally 
to the vocation of horse - stealing, but flexible 
enough to include rascalities of every description. 



286 KANSAS. 

At intervals the gang would dash into Missouri, 
seize horses and cattle — not omitting other and 
worse outrages on occasion — then repair with 
their booty to Lawrence, where it was defiantly- 
sold at auction. " Red-legs were accustomed to 
brag in Lawrence," says one who was familiar 
with their movements, " that nobody dared to in- 
terfere with them. They did not hesitate to shoot 
inquisitive and troublesome people. At Law- 
rence the livery stables were full of their stolen 
horses. One day I saw three or four Red-legs 
attack a Missourian who was in town searching 
for lost property. They gathered about him with 
drawn revolvers and drove him off very uncei'- 
emoniously. I once saw Hoyt, the leader, with- 
out a word of explanation or warning, open fire 
upon a stranger quietly riding down Massachu- 
setts Street. He was a Missourian whom Hoyt 
had recently robbed." The gang contained men 
of the most desperate and hardened character, and 
a full recital of their deeds would sound like the 
biography of devils. Either the people of Law- 
rence could not drive out the freebooters, or they 
thought it mattered little what might happen to 
Missouri disloyalists. Governor Robinson made 
a determined, but unsuccessful effoi-t to break up 
the organization. The Red-legs repaid the inter- 
ference by plots for his assassination, which barely 
miscarried. 

In the destruction of Lawrence August 21st, 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 287 

1863, the irregular, predatory hostilities of the 
border reached a shocking climax. The causes 
which brought about that event were various, and 
have been in the main already indicated — the 
campaign of Lane's brigade, the depredations of 
Red-legs, enmities and exasperations dating back 
to the settlement of Lawrence in 1854, as well as 
ordinary bushranging motives of plunder, " Jen- 
nison has laid waste our homes," was the declara- 
tion of more than one Missourian on the day of 
the massacre, " and the Red-legs have perpetrated 
unheard-of crimes. Houses have been plundered 
and burned, defenseless men shot down, and wo- 
men outraged. We are here for revenge — and 
we have got it ! " 

Quan trill, who led the raid, once lived in Law- 
rence — a dullish, sullen, uninteresting knave, giv- 
ing no promise of unusual bushranging genius. 
Just before the war opened he was driven from 
town in consequence of some misbehavior, and cast 
his lot among Missouri guerrillas. The stimulus 
of the great conflict developed in him unexpected 
capacities for marauding. He was eager to cross 
swords with Lane. " I should like to meet him," 
he said. " But then there would be no honor in 
whipping him. He is a coward. I believe I would 
cowhide him." 

In 1862 and the earlier months of 1863 several 
of the smaller Kansas towns along the Missouri 
line — Aubrey, Shawnee, and Olathe — were 



288 KANSAS. 

sacked by ruffians under Quantrill's lead. Gov- 
ernor Thomas Carney, who succeeded Governor 
Robinson January 1st, 1863, was uneasy, and 
vainly importuned the War Department for more 
troops. In May he visited the Southern border, 
where he found everything in confusion, and the 
whole region defenseless. There was no money 
in the state treasury. April 6th, 1862, Lane and 
eight of his friends addressed a communication 
to the secretary of war and the secretary of the 
treasury, protesting " against the payment of the 
money due to the State of Kansas for expenses in 
organizing volunteer troops for the service of the 
United States," and were able to stop it. In the 
emergency Governor Carney raised one hundred 
and fifty mounted men for police duty, and paid 
expenses out of his own pocket. 

That Quantrill meditated striking a blow at 
Lawrence some time was well known. There 
were alarms, citizens organized for defense, and 
kept a sharp lookout for the ruffian, but the bush- 
rangers did not appear when they were expected, 
vigilance relaxed, and a fatal sense of security fol- 
lowed panic. 

Quantrill's preliminary movements were not 
wholly enveloped in mystery. Intelligence that 
great activity prevailed among his forces, and that 
he was planning a dash into Kansas, reached fed- 
eral headquarters at Kansas City, Mo., but no at- 
tention was paid to it. Had scouts been dis- 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 289 

patched to exposed towns and warned them of 
danger the raid would have failed. 

Late on the afternoon of August 20th Quan- 
trill, with perhaps one hundred and seventy-five 
mounted men, crossed the Missouri line into Kan- 
sas. In Aubrey, five miles distant, there was a 
federal force of one hundred dragoons commanded 
by Captain J. A. Pike. It was not until half- 
past seven in the evening that the tardy scouts 
brought in news of the guerrillas' whereabouts. 
Captain Pike dispatched couriers to Kansas City, 
thirty-five miles distant, who arrived at half-past 
eleven o'clock. Couriers might have reached Law- 
rence, a ride of forty miles, about midnight, and 
in that case the bushrangers would have encoun- 
tered a warm reception. Or had Captain Pike 
instantly started in pursuit, hanging upon their 
rear, dogging their movements with menace if not 
attack, Lawrence would have been saved. 

It was nearly sunrise when Quantrill reached a 
little swell of the plain about a mile eastward 
from the doomed town. Not a whisper of his ap- 
proach had reached it. Yet though the surprise 
promised to be complete, the cowardly raiders 
hesitated — declined to go farther. A discussion 
ensued, which was ended by Quantrill's avowal 
that he should go into Lawrence whatever his 
men might do. This declaration revived their 
fainting courage. 

The bushrangers advanced within half a mile of 

19 



290 KANSAS. 

the town, halted again, and called the roll. Two 
horsemen, dispatched on a reconnaissance, rode 
through the principal street, and returned with 
the report that the village was asleep. A strange 
fatality of success attended the movements of the 
guerrillas. They rode " leisurely from their hid- 
ing-place in Missouri through the federal lines, 
and almost within shooting distance of a federal 
camp in the day-time," says H. E. Lowman in his 
" Lawrence Raid " ; " then just as leisurely made 
their way over forty miles of traveled road 
through Kansas settlements in the night, and 
halted — called the roll in the early dawn within 
pistol-shot of the houses of residents of Law- 
rence, and yet no warning voice . . . rang through 
her quiet streets — ' Quantrill is coming.' " 

There was a wild charge upon the village. The 
flying column of one hundred and seventy -five 
men riding with perfect horsemanship, yelling 
like demons, emitted one continuous, death-deal- 
ing volley as it dashed along. " I can still see the 
raiders," said an eye-witness of the scene years 
after the fatal morning, "as they stormed into 
town with their broad-brimmed hats — much like 
those which cowboys wear on the plains — with 
their unshaven beards and long hair, their dirty, 
greasy flannel shirts — coatless, and carrying no 
weapons except side-arms." 

While skirmishers instantly and completely en- 
veloped the village, the main body pushed on to 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 291 

seize the Eldridge House, a substantial brick 
building four stories high, which could have been 
successfully defended by a dozen armed and res- 
olute men against the attacks of horsemen whose 
heaviest ordnance was revolvers. But weapons 
for the citizens there were none. A fussy, over- 
confident mayor had locked them up safely and 
inaccessibly in the arsenal. At the hotel resist- 
ance was apparently anticipated. The bush- 
rangers drew up in front of it — surveyed it 
curiously, doubtfully. Presently a window was 
flung up, a white sheet displayed, and Quantrill 
summoned. Surrender speedily followed upon con- 
dition that the inmates of the hotel, who were 
mostly strangers, should be protected. A gong 
was sounded through the halls to collect them for 
convoy to the Whitney House, where Quantrill 
had established his headquarters. Mistaking the 
clangor for a signal of attack the ruffians has- 
tily fell back. But finding their fears without 
foundation, and all likelihood of concerted resist- 
ance at an end, they broke up into small compa- 
nies, scoured the town in literal and hearty obe- 
dience to the order — " Kill every man and bum 
every house." 

Then began a scene that cannot be matched on 
the border, crimsoned as it is with blood — a 
scene far surpassing Dutch Henry's Crossing and 
Marais des Cygnes in scope of death-dealing pas- 
sion — a scene which, like the massacre of Ennis- 



292 KANSAS. 

corthy, " swallowed up all distinct or separate fea- 
tures in its frantic confluence of horrors." Then 
began a terrible exhibition of what is best and 
worst in human nature — rapacious cupidities of 
successful pillage ; cowering, palsied panic ; cour- 
age that defied and cursed the villains to their 
faces ; flight, aimless and headlong or watchful 
and stealthy ; pitiless revenge stung by memory 
of wrongs still fresh and rankling ; affection that 
freely and gladly braved death ; pistol-shots ; tho 
clatter of horsemen riding furiously ; the groans 
of the dying, and the roar of conflagration. With 
few exceptions the bushrangers seemed to be de- 
humanized and transformed into the image of 
devils. The divine nature of love and mercy, if 
it ever existed, passed away, and the fiendish na- 
ture took its place. Stores, banks, hotels, and 
dwellings they rifled and then set them on fire. 
Citizens of the town were hunted like wild beasts 
and shot down indiscriminately. They pursued 
Red-legs with particular earnestness, and showed 
them no mercy when captured. Nor did they neg- 
lect to search attentively though vainly for Lane 
and the thrifty chaplain of his brigade. But the 
wrath of the raiders burned without nice distinc- 
tion or qualification against all the male inhabi- 
tants of Lawrence, of whom one hundred and 
eighty-three fell victims in the butchery. 

The heroism and fertility of resources shown 
by women of Lawrence on this day of blood are 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 293 

worthy of mention. At no other crisis of Kansas 
history does their service come into such bold and 
brilliant relief — of which only an instance or two 
can be set down here. Four wretches, crazed with 
drink, rode to the Whitney House, swearing they 
would shoot some one — it did n't matter much 
whom. A young woman offered herself, remark- 
ing, " They might as well kill me " — an act of 
daring that temporarily arrested their murderous 
designs. Another woman fairly magnetized a 
brace of rufhans, and saved her husband's life by 
charm of manner and tact of conversation. A 
third, whose husband was particularly obnoxious 
to the bushrangers, and whom they were anxious 
to catch, gave him opportunity to escape by notic- 
ing that the leader of the gang detailed to shoot 
him and burn his house wore a flower in his hat. 
" Good morning," she said cheerfully ; " you have 
come to see my flowers " — the front yard was 
full of them. " They are fine," he said, looking 
about with evident admiration. " They are too 
d — d pretty to be burnt. I '11 shoot the man that 
touches them, March on ! " 

When the work of butchery and destruction 
was finished Quantrill took a lunch at the Whit- 
ney House, and ordered the bushrangers to retire. 
*' Ladies,'" said he, politely lifting his hat and bow- 
ing, " I now bid you good morning. I hope when 
we meet again it will be under more favorable cir- 
cumstances I " 



294 KANSAS. 

It was a sickening scene from which the guer- 
rilla chief galloped away — the town in flames, 
the principal street lined with corpses, many of 
them so charred and blackened that they were at 
first mistaken for negroes. " In handling the dead 
bodies," said one of the survivors, " pieces of 
roasted flesh would remain in our hands. Soon 
our strength failed us in this terrible and sicken- 
ing work. Many could not help crying like chil- 
dren." 

Early in the forenoon the bushrangers were re- 
treating toward Missouri, freshly mounted on 
stolen horses, and heavily accoutred with spoils. 
Between nine and ten o'clock citizens who sur- 
vived the butchery began to rally, and a small 
company under the lead of Lane, who happened 
to be in town, gave chase. The pursuers, whose 
numbers were slenderly recruited as they advanced, 
overtook Quantrill about noon near Brooklyn, 
halted, got into line, were counted, and found to 
number thirty-five men. They were mounted on 
beasts of every sort — mules, half -trained colts, 
and slow-paced draft-horses, as well as animals of 
higher grade. Nor were their weapons less vari- 
ous than their steeds. Lane put Lieutenant J. K. 
Rankin in command, who attempted to execute a 
flank movement by way of Prairie City and cut 
off Quantrill's retreat into ]\Iissouri. The little 
company was only fairly in motion when a courier 
rode up with the message — " Major Plumb is 



DDRING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 295 

yonder with two hundred and fifty men and sent 
me to notify you." "Tell the major that Quan- 
ttill is just beyond us on the prairie, and that we 
shall attack him at once." 

The enemy were less than a mile away, and 
Lieutenant Rankin ordered a charge upon the rear- 
guard. Possibly half of the intervening space 
had been traversed, when the lieutenant found 
himself almost alone. As each trooper had a gait 
and speed of his own, the company was scattered 
at irregular intervals along the line of advance, 
and from a military point of view did not present 
a very formidable appearance. 

Major Plumb's force divided, one company mov- 
ing upon Quantrill's rear, and the other upon 
his flank. Lieutenant Rankin, seeing that little 
could be expected from his thirty-five stragglers, 
joined the former company, which had ridden 
within striking distance of the bushrangers, and 
ordered a charge, but the valiant troopers declined 
to make it. Soon Lane came up and repeated the 
command, — with no better result. Major Plumb 
shortly arrived with his division, and there was 
still opportunity to ride down the marauders. The 
federal commander hesitated and missed his op- 
portunity. Pursuit continued into Missouri, re- 
prisals were made, and three or four border coun- 
ties, in obedience to General Thomas Ewing Jr.'s 
famous order No. 11, largely depopulated — but 
the desperadoes escaped. 



296 KANSAS. 

When the full extent of the massacre dawned 
upon the survivors, there rose a frantic reaction 
toward revenge. Woe to the man within reach 
upon whom suspicion of confederacy with the 
marauders might fall. Had the troops who 
brought them to bay on the prairies fully ap- 
preciated the enormity of their crimes, possibly 
the hideous knowledge uiight have strung their 
courage up to the fighting point. However that 
may have been, the spectacle of sons, brothers, 
fathers, neighbors, slaughtered with every aggrava- 
tion of cowardly brutality — of a town completely 
wrecked and given over to the torch — kindled 
the dead coals of desperation and revenge. There 
was a luckless wight — Jake Callew by name — 
against whom lay suspicions of playing the spy in 
the interest of Quantrill — suspicions vague, indi- 
rect, unevidenced, but sufficient to rouse a mob 
that would listen to no appeals deprecating vio- 
lence, or pleading for delay. 

" The sea enraged is not half so deaf." 

The mob seized Callew and arraigned him before 
an extemporized court. A verdict was rendered 
that the evidence did not prove his guilt. " You 
have heard the verdict," said the judge, address- 
ing the frenzied rout. " Now, gentlemen, what 
will you do with the prisoner?" "Hang him," 
was the quick response. Preparations for the gib- 
bet went on apace. It occurred to somebody that 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 297 

the doomed man might need the consolations of 
religion. Among the spectators a clergyman was 
discovered. " You had better make your peace 
with God for you don't stand much chance with 
this crowd," said the clergyman. " You need n't 
trouble yourself about my soul," the unapprecia- 
tive sinner replied. " How do you like that, old 
fellow," broke in the hangman as he gave a tug at 
the rope and swung the poor Avretch into eternity ! 
The destruction of Lawrence did not allay the 
feuds among Kansas officials. Lane's relations 
with Governor Carney ran through the entire 
gamut of variation from friendship to hostility, 
from hostility to confidential intimacy. He still 
struggled for absolute control of the military pat- 
ronage of the state, and generally carried his point. 
Carney determined to make an end of this dis- 
creditable business — a senator of Kansas usui'p- 
ing the functions of the governor of Kansas. " No 
governor with a proper self-respect," he wrote 
President Lincoln . . . could or would tolerate 
such interference. What other loyal state has 
been thus humiliated ? . . . Kansas stands alone. 
I claim for her that she shall be the equal of the 
proudest of them. ... I ask the revocation of 
the power conferred on J. H. Lane as recruiting 
commissioner." This letter Governor Carney 
followed up by an interview with President Lin- 
coln, at the conclusion of which he addressed the 
following note to Secretary Stanton, dated Wash- 



298 KANSAS. 

ington, May 28th, 1864 : " Please see and hear the 
governor of Kansas with Judge Williams and Mr. 
Vaughn, Will we not, at last, be compelled to 
treat the governor of Kansas as we do other gov- 
ernors about raising and commissioning troops? 
I think it will have to be so." Governor Carney 
delivered this note in person to Secretary Stanton 
who read it, tore it in two, and said angrily — 
" Tell the president that I am secretary of war." 
Carney turned on his heel. " Wait," said Stanton, 
in a milder tone. "What do you want?" An 
understanding was reached, and henceforth the 
governor of Kansas was to be treated like other 
governors. 

After the Lawrence raid Kansas experienced no 
general upheaval until the attempted invasion 
of General Sterling Price, who led a daring expe- 
dition, in the autumn of 1864, from Arkansas 
across the State of Missouri, living upon the 
country through which he passed, remounting 
his cavalry with fresh horses, threatening St. 
Louis, then deflecting toward Jefferson City, and 
pushing on to the Kansas line before his advance 
was successfully arrested. Great alarm prevailed. 
October 8th Governor Carney called out the en- 
tire militia. Ten thousand six hundred men re- 
sponded, and were mostly concentrated in the 
neighborhood of Kansas City — a gallant, but un- 
disciplined force. The battles at Lexington, along 
the Little Blue and the Big Blue, demonstrated 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 299 

their inability to cope with Price. The arrival of 
General Pleasanton on the 22d with seven thou- 
sand cavalry and eight pieces of artillery put a 
new face upon the campaign. On the next day 
the battle of Westport was fought, and the bold 
raiders turned southward in confusion. Their re- 
treat scurried along the border, bending into Linn 
County, zigzagging toward Fort Scott, then turn- 
ing eastward and southward until it crossed the 
Arkansas. 

The expedition of Price was the last Confederate 
foray into Kansas. A long series of Missouri inva- 
sions closed with his retreat across the Arkansas. 
Bushrangers, jayhawkers, Red-legs, who played so 
prominent and so protracted a part on the stage 
of local history, now make a leisurely exit. 

The first five years of Kansas history after ad- 
mission to the Union were years of intrigue, con- 
fusion, alarm, and guerrillaism. With the wounds 
of the territorial struggle unhealed, with a heavy 
percentage of the population under arms, with the 
streams of immigration almost completely dried 
up, it was not possible that Kansas should make 
material or social progress while the war for the 
Union continued. The forces of repair and devel- 
opment were unequal to the waste. 

The man who figured so largely in Kansas af- 
fairs during the rebellion did not long survive its 
close. When the Republican party broke with 
President Johnson, Lane declined to join in the 



300 KANSAS. 

attack upon him. This step gave offense to 
former friends. " So far as I am concerned," he 
said in the Senate April 6th, 1866, ''I propose 
to-day and hereafter to take my position alongside 
the president." His course disposed Republican 
senators to investigate discreditable rumors about 
him that filled the air. Charges of corruption in 
connection with Indian contracts had been made 
vaguely in the public prints against some un- 
named senator. " I propose to fill up the hiatus," 
wrote the Washington . correspondent of the Bos- 
ton "Commonwealth," "and let the public know 
. . . that the charge refers to Senator James H. 
Lane." Governor Carney, whose relations with 
Lane were now on a confidential footing, hap- 
pened to be at his lodgings when the mail ar- 
rived containing a copy of the " Commonwealth " 
— which he read and then handed to Carney. 
" Oh that 's nothing," said Carney, cheerfully. 
" You have been charged with about everything 
on the face of the earth. That does n't amount 
to much." " Does n"t amount to much ! " Lane 
repeated in a very excited and tragic manner. 

The next morning Carney returned and found 
Lane in a pitiable plight — half-clad, his hair 
erect and bristling, his small, sunken, snaky eyes 
burning like live coals, his "sinister face, plain 
to ugliness," figured over with desperation, and 
ravine; that two sunshine friends whom he sus- 
pected of treachery must be sent for at once, the 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 301 

one to receive a challenge, tlie other a cowhid- 
ing. The gentlemen present — Perry Fuller, the 
Indian trader in whose government contracts 
Lane was accused of having pecuniary interest, 
Major Heath, and Governor Carney — bestirred 
themselves to refute the newspaper charges. Ma- 
jor Heath wrote a corrugated oath denying that 
Lane ever had financial transactions with Fuller 
of greater magnitude than house-renting, and Ful- 
ler signed it. Then something must be done 
about the Senate. Lane felt that he could not 
take his seat again without a personal explana- 
tion. As he was incapable of doing the work 
himself in his distraught condition, Carney and 
Heath, who did not then know all the facts, wrote 
out a short speech, pronouncing the " imputation 
conveyed by innuendo and indirection in the Bos- 
ton ' Commonwealth ' . . . a baseless calumny." 
On the following day — May 29th — Lane read 
this speech from manuscript in the Senate, and 
shortly afterward returned to his lodgings. " The 
speech," he said, "was just the thing. It was one 
of the happiest little efforts of my life." 

June 11th Lane obtained leave of absence for 
ten days, subsequently prolonged until the close 
of the session, to visit Kansas, where such was 
the hostility which grew out of his alliance with 
President Johnson, he met a cold and hostile re- 
ception. Old acquaintances passed him on the 
street without recognition, and political conven- 



302 KANSAS. 

tions denounced him. It was a reception far dif- 
ferent from what had awaited him in other days, 
" When Lane," said the " Leavenworth Daily 
Conservative " January 28th, 1862, " touches this 
soil, which his own courage, his own strategy, his 
own unconquerable perseverance saved for free- 
dom, a glorious halo surrounds his head, a sub- 
lime inspiration fills his eye, a splendid glow lights 
up his countenance ! " 

After Lane's personal explanation in the Senate 
Carney made a visit of some days to New York. 
Upon his return to Washington he met Senator 
Doolittle, chairman of the Senate committee on 
Indian affairs, who showed him the copartnership 
papers of the Indian traders, Fuller & Co., in 
which Lane's name appeared, and a canceled 
check on E. H. Gruber & Co., of Leavenworth, 
which proved that he had received twenty thou- 
sand dollars from the concern. 

Spending a few unhappy days in Kansas — 
doubly unhappy in the case of one so eager for the 
applause of men, so ambitious 

" To live on their tongues and be their talk," — 
Lane set out for Washington. He reached St. 
Louis on the 19th of June. There he met Gov- 
ernor Carney, and the whole situation was dis- 
cussed — the fatal papers in Senator Doolittle's 
possession, and the exaspei'ation of Republican 
congressmen. " Do you think," he asked, " that 
I had better resign? Do you suppose Johnson 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 803 

would give me a foreign mission? Could I be 
confirmed?" No light of hope appeared, "freak- 
ing gloom with glow." Lane returned to Leav- 
enworth, where on the 1st of July he placed the 
pistol in his mouth and discharged it. Though 
the bullet passed through the brain, such was his 
vitality, he survived ten days. 

No more unscrupulous soldier of fortune ever 
posed before the public than James H. Lane. He 
possessed in large measure the qualities that find 
a congenial and successful field in border turmoils. 
Of a slight and wiry figure, he had remarkable 
physical endurance. When removed from lead- 
ership of the overland "Northern army" in 1856, 
he set off immediately from Nebraska for Law- 
rence. Riding night and day, he arrived at his 
destination alone, and without apparent fatigue. 
His half - dozen companions, including Captain 
Samuel Walker and Old John Brown, all gave out 
by the way. 

Lane was a confusion of passions grossly but 
not wholly ignoble. " Nobody can study his face," 
says Mrs. Ropes in her vivacious " Six Months 
in Kansas," " without a sensation very much 
like that with which one stands at the edge of a 
slimy, sedgy, uncertain morass." Conscienceless 
and with little confidence in the truth; selfish, 
grasping to the last degree, though at times and 
by spasms alive with seeming generosity and pub- 
lic spirit ; watching the vanes of popular senti- 



304 KANSAS. 

ment and veering with them, though occasionally 
showing unexpected boldness and obstinacy of 
opinion ; attracting men and managing them con- 
summately ; able to pay heaviest obligations in 
the cheap coin of promises ; indomitably persis- 
tent ; cowardly and courageous by turn ; a merci- 
less enemy, but faithful to friends where personal 
interest did not require their sacrifice, Lane be- 
longed to the basest, most mischievous class of 
politicians. 

As a stump speaker he had no equal on the 
border. " I heard him at Nebraska City in 1856, 
before a hostile audience," says T. W. Higginson, 
"and if eloquence consists in moving and swaying 
men at pleasure I never saw a more striking ex- 
hibition of it." Lane's oratory faithfully reflected 
the character of the man, in which elements of 
chaos and lunacy were bound up with extraordi- 
nary astuteness and knowledge of human nature. 
It owed little to elocutionary grace. His manner 
was strained, angular, and dramatic, while his voice 
vibrated between shouts and blood-curdling whis- 
pers. Neither weight of thought, nor subtilty of 
logic, nor elevation of sentiment, nor exceptional 
range of vocabulary, appeared in his oratory. 
Lane was an unlettered man. In his hands rules 
of grammar fared badly. His knowledge came 
from observation rather than from books. Types 
can do only scant justice to oratory that is es- 
sentially personal, and hence his speeches lose in 



DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 305 

print. Skillful adaptation to time and place ; sure 
tact in humoring the prejudices and firing the 
passions of an audience ; unmeasured invective ; 
an intensity of utterance that sometimes reached 
the verge of frenzy ; grotesque, extravagant, ring- 
ing turns of phrase, and what, in the absence of a 
better word, is called magnetism, seem to be the 
capital elements of Lane's singularly effective 
speech. 

That the harm which such a man does to a 
commonwealth must largely exceed the service 
goes without saying. Lane's energy, enthusiasm, 
and eloquence were serviceable in the territorial 
struggle, but even then these admirable qualities 
had a serious offset in his restless jealousy, in- 
trigue, and rashness. The free-state cause would 
not have been safe in his hands an hour at any 
critical juncture. But if the evil was checked 
and mitigated at first by the necessities of the 
situation, when Lane reached the United States 
Senate and gained the ear of the administration, 
then his wretched policies and ambitions had 
ample sea-room — policies and ambitions that de- 
bauched the political morals of the commonwealth 
and drew upon it a grievous train of calamities. 
20 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AD ASTRA. 

It is often difficult, some one has said, to man- 
age the future of an heroic action — a problem no 
more formidable for individuals than for states. 
An exceptional, brilliant past demands a present 
and a future that shall not be out of harmony or 
fall into anti-climax. Kans^ has a significant 
and memorable history ; the territorial struggle 
converted a wilderness, which had little claim 
upon the interest of mankind, into historic ground. 

But now we reach a different epoch. From the 
date of settlement until the close of the war for 
the Union, though in the later stages it broke 
down into discreditable political intrigue and mur- 
derous bushfighting, the history of Kansas pur- 
sued a single theme. The war for the Union 
caught up and nationalized the verdict of the ter- 
ritorial broil. 

In the large influx of colored people from the 
South in 1878-79 there was indeed a striking af- 
ter-piece of the border conflict. Out of the unset- 
tled condition of affairs in the South, out of the 
frictions and hardships unavoidable in a radical 



AD ASTRA. 307 

reconstruction of society, an extensive colored ex- 
odus sprang. Repoits were rife that in Kansas 
— a name glorified in their minds as having 
some vague connection with emancipation — better 
homes, larger opportunities, kindlier treatment, 
awaited them than could be expected elsewhere. 
A colored convention, attended by delegates from 
fourteen states, met at Nashville, Tennessee, May 
7th, 1879, and advised colored people of the South 
to " emigiate to those states and territories where 
they can enjoy all the rights which are guaran- 
tied by the laws and constitution of the United 
States." The excitement, fanned by outrages and 
demagogues, became intense. Notwithstanding 
the conciliatory efforts of Southern planters and 
the warnings of prominent colored leaders, who op- 
posed migration as a remedy for grievances, not 
less than forty thousand negroes reached Kansas 
in every stage of destitution. These fugitives re- 
lief societies took in charge ; provided with shel- 
ter, clothing, and food ; organized into new colo- 
nies, or distributed among the older communities. 
On the whole, they seem to have improved their 
circumstances by the flight, though at the expense 
of much temporary discomfort. It was dramat- 
ically befitting — a fact not destitute of pathetic 
and poetic suggestion — that Southern negroes, 
in the extremities of reconstruction, should have 
turned their eyes toward the state where the first 
blow was struck for their freedom. 



308 KANSAS. 

The people of Kansas in 1865 dropped the 
sword and grasped the plow. " A happy nation," 
says Ruskin, " may be defined as one in which the 
husband's hand is on the plow and the housewife's 
on the needle." Though embarrassed from 1864 
to 1870 by Indian hostilities, in which at least a 
thousand citizens lost their lives and much prop- 
erty was destroyed ; though scorched by occasional 
droughts ; though visited in 1874 by plagues of lo- 
custs which desolated large districts, devouring 
fruits, vegetables, and grains with inexhaustible 
voracity, so that the familiar story of destitute, 
starving Kansas was heard once more, yet few 
American commonwealths have ever made so 
much material progress in twenty years. 

This progress appears the more remarkable 
when we consider the geographical notions cur- 
rent fifty years ago, not to mention those that 
Senator Green, of Missouri, avowed so late as the 
Lecompton debate. Fifty years ago no agricul- 
tural future was thought possible for Kansas. It 
belonged to that vast Mediterranean tract, the 
greater part of which Irving thought would " form 
a lawless interval between the abodes of civilized 
man, like the wastes of the ocean or the deserts 
of Arabia. . . . Here may spring up new and 
mongrel races, like new formations in geology, the 
amalgamations of the debris and abrasions of for- 
mer races civilized and savage ; . . . the descend- 
ants of wandering hunters and trappers ; of fu- 



AD ASTRA. 309 

gitives from the Spanish and American frontiers; 
of adventurers and desperadoes of every class and 
country, yearly ejected from the bosom of society 
into the wilderness." 

Irving's prophecy went wide of the mark. No 
mongrel races, the detritus of neighboring civili- 
zations, overrun Kansas. The wastes have disap- 
peared or are disappearing. And recent writers 
do not hesitate to pronounce the Great American 
Desert a myth. 

Little was done, as has been said before, to test 
the material resources of Kansas until the close 
of the Rebellion. The Indians, it is true, dab- 
bled in agriculture. They succeeded in raising 
slender crops of corn, beans, and pumpkins. Rev. 
Thomas Johnson and other missionaries tried in- 
effectually to deepen their practical interest in the 
soil. During the territorial period political inter- 
ests compelled a paramount attention. When the 
war for the Union broke out there followed a still 
greater diversion from farm industry. " One half 
of our entire population, between the ages of eigh- 
teen and forty-five," Governor Robinson wrote 
September 1st, 1862, " is in the army." 

The population of Kansas in 1865 was 135,807. 
In the two succeeding decades the increase reached 
nearly a million souls, an immigration scarcely 
precedented in volume. A corresponding agricul- 
tural development followed, which placed Kansas, 
according to the census of 1880, seventeenth on 



310 KANSAS. 

the list of states in value of farm products, and 
eighth in value of live stock. In 1884 the wheat 
crop was 48,030,431 bushels against 25,279,884 
in 1880. The corn crop rose from 101,421,718 
bushels in 1880 to 190,870,686 in 1884. Other 
branches of farm industry advanced proportionally 
during the years 1882-84, so that in 1884 Kansas 
ranked among the foremost states in agricultural 
products. 

Meteorological changes have accompanied the 
settlement of Kansas. However the fact may be 
explained, whatever agency the sudden and ex- 
tensive agriculture or the planting of artificial for- 
ests, which, including fruit-trees, were estimated 
in 1884 at 171,810 acres, may have exerted, the 
amount of annual rain-fall, according to the fore- 
most Kansas authority in such matters. Professor 
Snow, of the State University, shows an increase 
of five inches in Eastern Kansas during the last 
twenty years compared with a like pre-settlement 
period. In this augmented precipitation the west- 
ern third of Kansas has shared, but so moderately 
as to promise little for agriculture. Apparently 
^successful farming in that region must await the 
introduction of some practicable system of irriga- 
tion. 

The creation of a great state in the wilderness 
of Kansas since 1865 is mainly a feat of the rail- 
road. "If this invention," said Emerson, "has 
reduced England to a third of its size by bring- 



AD ASTRA. 311 

Ing people so much nearer, in this country it has 
given a new celerity to time^ or anticipated by 
fifty years the planting of tracts of land." With- 
out the adventurous forecast and push of railway 
corporations, which drew public attention to tho 
resources of Kansas and put them within reach, 
its settlement, like that of older states, would have 
stretched over a much longer period. By a sys- 
tem of advertising which skillfully seized upon 
avenues of communication — newspapers, pam- 
phlets, traveling agents, national and interna- 
tional exhibitions — these coi'porations greatly 
abridged the ordinary course of events. Rail- 
ways now penetrate every }:>art of the state, — 

" And thatch with towns the prairies broad." 

At the last national census Kansas had reached 
the ninth place among the states in railway mile- 
age. January, 1885, the amount of main track 
exceeded four thousand miles. 

Certainly Kansas is assured of whatever star- 
ward energy may reside in numbers or in ma- 
terial prosperities. That their tendency is not 
altogpther ennobling and uplifting social philoso- 
phers have been careful to point out. Matthew 
Arnold ventures his hope for the future on rem- 
nants in Israel who have not bowed the knee to 
Baal. Carlyle sneers at political economy, and 
disparages Americans in particular as a genera- 
tion of dollar-hunters. 



312 KANSAS. 

" Oh, better far the briefest hour 
Of Athens self-consumed whose plastic power 
Hid beauty safe from Death in words or stone ; 
Of Rome, fair quarry where those eagles crowd 
Whose fulgurous vans about the world had blown 
Triumphant storm and seeds of polity ; 
Of Venice, fading o'er her shipless sea. 
Last iridescence of a fading cloud ; 
Than this inert prosperity 
This bovine comfort in the sense alone ! " 

Mere bigness will not do much for a state or 
nation except in politics, where heavy weights 
tell. Holland, with limited area and population, 
is the mother of illustrious statesmen, soldiers, and 
scholars, and at one time championed the cause of 
freedom for the world. But while industrial and 
numerical progress does not necessarily imply 
progress in culture, yet it lays broad foundations 
upon which culture may build. It enlarges the 
scope of possibilities. The outcome of a splendid 
material development will turn on the question 
whether high moral, intellectual, sesthetic, and 
idealizing forces mingle in it, — 

" And set our pulse in tune with moods divine." 

Kansas is not wanting in these superior forces. 
The New England colonists, though feebly influ- 
enced by motives of technical theology, gave im- 
mediate attention to the establishment of a church. 
October 1st, 1854, Rev. S. Y. Lum preached at 
Lawrence the first sermon delivered to white men 
in the territory. The Pioneer Hotel served as 
a meeting-house. " A few rough boards were 



AD ASTRA. 313 

brought for seats," Mrs. Robinson wrote, "and 
with singing by several good voices among the 
pioneers the usual church services were performed. 
. . . The people then, as on many succeeding sab- 
baths, were gathered together by the ringing of 
a large dinner bell." Plymouth Congregational 
Church was organized October 15th, with seven 
members, and is the oldest in Kansas. Other 
denominalions began work in the territory at an 
early day. But as the religious history of the 
commonwealth exhibits little that is exceptional, 
it will not now be set forth at large. To home 
missionaries — to their patient, self-denying, he- 
roic and sometimes perilous service — Kansas is 
heavily indebted. The State had 2046 church 
oiganizations in 1884, with a membership up- 
wards of 185,000. 

Educational matters have awakened strong in- 
terest in Kansas and exhibit praiseworthy prog- 
ress, though the expectations of the Senate Com- 
mittee on Education for 1858-9 have not as yet 
been realized. "It should be the aim of the edu- 
cators of Kansas," said the optimistic committee, 
in a report recommending that the schools should 
be supplied with Webster's dictionai'ies, " to make 
this territory a model state in American lit- 
erature. In this new territory we have all the 
requisite elements for building up a system of 
universities, colleges, schools, and seminaries of 
learning unequaled by any other on the globe. 



314 KANSAS. 

Your committee believe it is the province of the 
people of Kansas to inaugurate an educational 
system which shall perfect the English language 
as well as English literature." It may have been 
sympathy, more or less conscious, with these lib- 
eral expectations that induced the territorial leg- 
islature in the sessions of 1855 60 to incorporate 
eighteen universities and ten colleges ! Out of 
these twenty-eight institutions, twenty-five have 
perished — a mortality unparalleled in the history 
of education. 

Governor Reeder commended the subject of 
schools to the legislature assembled at Pawnee, 
saying, with admirable point, ^ It is always bet- 
ter to pay for the education of a boy than the 
punishment of a man." The first territorial legis- 
lature, which was more modest in the matter of 
universities than most of the legislatures that fol- 
lowed, since it incorporated only three, provided 
for the establishment of schools in each county, 
" which shall be open and free to every class of 
white citizens," and directed that half the fines 
paid into county treasuries should be applied to 
their support. When the legislature fell into the 
hands of the free-state men in 1857, they recon- 
structed and liberalized the school system, and 
created the office of territorial superintendent. 
Yet, as a matter of fact, almost nothing was done 
under territorial laws until 1859. January 1st, 
1859, not more than five school districts had been 



AD ASTRA. 315 

organized in Douglass County which was better 
circumstanced in this matter than the other coun- 
ties. But befoi-e June, thirty additional districts 
were organized. And during this period consid- 
erable educational machinery was set up in the 
rest of the territory. 

In Lawrence private schools began at an early 
date. " You have laid out grounds for a college," 
Mr. Lawrence wrote Governor Robinson, Novem- 
ber 21st, 1854, " and will have a good one, with- 
out doubt, in due time ; but in the first place 
you must have a preparatory school." Oh the 
16th of January, 1855, a private school — the ear- 
liest in the territory of any kind — was opened in 
the Emigrant Aid building. It continued four- 
teen or fifteen weeks, with an attendance of twenty 
scholars. From its close, three terms of private 
school, for three months or less, comprised all the 
educational facilities of Lawrence until the 30th 
of March, 1857, when a select school of larger 
pretensions was opened. It continued for two 
years, with C, L. Edwards as principal, and was 
called the '' Quincy High School," in honor of 
Josiah Quincy, of Boston. " A school is now in 
progress under the Unitarian Church, with two 
teachers and about fifty scholars," said a letter- 
writer April 17th, 1857. 

In the spring of 1857 Mr. Lawrence gave ten 
thousand dollars to the city of Lawrence, the in- 
come of which should be devoted to school pur- 



316 KANSAS. 

poses. Originally a memorial college seems to 
have been in mind. " You shall have a college," 
he wrote Rev. Ephraim Nute, of Lawrence, De- 
cember IGth, 1856, " which shall be a school of 
learning, and at the same time a monument to per- 
petuate the memory of those martyrs of liberty 
who fell during the recent struggles. Beneath it 
their dust shall rest. In it shall burn the light 
of liberty, which shall never be extinguished. . . . 
It shall be called the ' Free State College,' and all 
the friends of freedom shall be invited to lend 
a helping hand." The dream had a touching, 
though accidental and shadowy realization. No 
free-state college was ever built, but in making 
excavations for the main building of the State 
University workmen disinterred the remains of a 
dead soldier. 

For a time the income of the ten thousand dol- 
lars was applied to the support of the Quincy 
High School. This fund attracted the attention 
of religious denominations, among which no less 
than three — Presbyterians, Congregationalists, 
and Episcopalians — lured by hopes of obtaining 
it as a nucleus for endowment, attempted the es- 
tablishment of a college in Lawrence. The Pres- 
byterians were first in the field, secured a site, and 
laid the foundations of a college building. In the 
spring of 1859 the " Circular of the Lawrence 
University" appeared, announcing that an "In- 
stitution of Learning of the first class has been 



AD ASTRA. 317 

chartered and established at Lawrence, Kansas. 
. . . The institution will open on the 11th of 
April next [1859], and continue for a term of 
three months." In the faculty " eminent teach- 
ers " and " distinguished educators " were found, 
so that the institution confidently promised to fur- 
nish the " culture and discipline essential to suc- 
cess and eminence in any walk of life." But the 
undertaking did not prosper. Denominational 
feuds hurt it, and failure to get possession of the 
Lawrence fund completed its ruin. " We did not 
feel justified as a board," wrote the secretary of 
the trustees to Mr. Lawrence, " to commence a 
university in Kansas at the present time without 
the benefit of your fund." In 1860 the Congre- 
gation alists took up the enterprise and proposed 
to build a " Monumental College." An act of 
incorporation was procured, a board of trustees 
elected, and a subscription paper circulated. The 
subscription paper met with some success. Money 
and material to the amount of four thousand dol- 
lars, town lots, twenty acres of land in Lawrence 
and twelve hundred elsewhere were pledged, pro- 
vided thirty thousand dollars should be raised 
before January 1st, 1861. That sum could not 
be secured, and the effort failed. Finally the 
Eijiscopalians took the business in hand. They 
effected an organization, chose trustees, and so- 
licited funds to complete the " Lawrence Univer- 
sity." Governor Robinson writes May 22d, 1861, 



318 KANSAS. 

that the " Episcopal College trustees " have pur- 
chased the site and basement of the building com- 
menced last year by the Presbyterians, and are 
anxious to secure the Lawrence fund. But they 
did not get the money, and accomplished little 
beyond a partial completion of the unfinished 
building. 

The much-sought ten thousand dollars fell at 
last to the State University, as did the assets of all 
the contemplated colleges in Lawrence that pre- 
ceded it, and had decisive influence in determin- 
ing where it should be placed. " The legislature 
has passed a law," Governor Robinson wrote Mr. 
Lawrence February 23d, 1863, " locating the State 
University at Lawrence, on condition that fifteen 
thousand dollars shall be paid into the treasury in 
six months, and forty acres of land given to the 
University. If these conditions are not complied 
with, then the University is [to be] located at 
Emporia. ... It was with great difficulty that 
the location was secured here, and nothing saved 
us but the inducements of your fund." 

The school system of Kansas does not require 
elaborate exposition in this place. In addition to 
primary and intermediate schools, the state sup- 
ports three higher institutions, which are in suc- 
cessful and progressive operation, the Normal 
School at Emporia, the Agricultural College at 
Manhattan, and the University at Lawi'ence. 
Seven religious denominations have established 



AD ASTRA. 319 

colleges or universities which constitute an im- 
portant factor of educational work in the state. 
Among Kansas teachers, it is due them to say, a 
commendable alertness, enthusiasm, and ambition 
prevail. Their work gives evidence that the very- 
highest mission of education is not wholly unap- 
preciated. That mission cannot be accomplished 
by processes, however admirable, of drill and ac- 
quisition alone. Recognizing the fact that moral 
and sentimental problems are by no means the 
least important for a community ; that the first 
order of citizenship is impossible without the ser- 
vice of the impassioned imagination to body forth 
living, vivid conceptions of ethical and sesthetical 
realities, the ideal education creates vitalized in- 
telligence, alive and responsive to whatever is 
nobly said or done. 

In the ministry of physical environment, which, 
in its higher forms, is a perennial source of aes- 
thetic, idealizing, poetic inspirations for commu- 
nities as well as individuals, Kansas at once has 
drawbacks and advantages. Expanses of rolling 
prairie, flattening on the western border into level 
plains, sparingly watered with brooks and riv- 
ers, unbroken by great mountain ranges, without 
the shadows, recesses, and deep seclusions of pri- 
meval forests, exposed and bare to all the garish 
sunshine of the year, have obvious limitations of 
scenic power. Yet there are compensations. Some 
phases of beauty shine in magnificent exhibition. 



320 KANSAS. 

There may be seen gorgeous splendors of cloud- 
glory ; lustrous starlight and moonlight in com- 
parison with which northern heavens seem faded 
and withdrawn ; the winter greenery of wheat 
fields ; the faint, delicate blush of maple buds 
that sometimes give signs of life in February ; the 
brilliant bloom of wild crab-apple and Judas trees, 
greeting the spring ; expanses of landscape rich 
with half tropical vegetation, figured with infinite 
interplay of light and shade, — 

" Vast as the sky ajjainst whose sunset shores, 
Wave after wave the billowy greenness pours." 

It only remains to note the eager, restless, pro- 
gressive spirit which distinguishes Kansas. This 
spirit has appeared and is appearing variously. It 
is exhibited in the great and as yet unsettled tem- 
perance agitation, which amended the organic law 
of the state by the introduction of a prohibitory 
clause ; in the admission of both sexes to the State 
University from the date of its foundation; in the 
service of women as county superintendents of 
schools and as university regents and professors ; in 
literary and art circles, which form an interesting 
feature of various towns ; in the Woman's Social 
Science Clnb, an organization that embraces Kan- 
sas and Western Missouri, and holds semi-annual 
meetings for the discussion of social, domestic, 
hygienic, and literary topics. Such an aggressive 
and ambitious temper, which has the nerve to 
venture, to experiment, if need be, at the expense 



AB ASTRA. 321 

of tradition and precedent, promises effectual de- 
fense against enervating influences — against the 
insidious lethargy of fierce summer heats and that 
" bovine comfort " of broad and teeming acres 
which Lowell deprecates. 

The history of Kansas which began three dec- 
ades ago with a wilderness, with the fence and 
skirmish that preluded a tremendous civil war, 
closes with a great commonwealth rich in the 
material and immaterial things essential to life. 

21 



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ai 



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Gleed, C. S., Editor. The Kansas Memorial. Kansas City, 1880. 

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Greeley, Horace. The American Conflict. Hartford. 

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IISTDEX. 



Abbott, J. B., 88, 179, 199, 242. 

Abolitionists, the early, 15. 

Atchison, D. R., 24, 25 ; designs in 
Kansas, 56 ; course of in the Waka- 
rusa War, 97, 98, 100 ; at Lawrence 
May 21, 1856, 121, 122, 123, 124 ; ap- 
peals of to the South, 173, 174, 188, 
189 ; conference of with Governor 
Geary at Franklin, 200, 201. 

Atchison, town of, 28. 

Atkins, Representative of Tennessee, 
232. 

Babcock, C. "W., 95, 96. 

Bayard, J. A., on Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany, 33 ; on the Topeka movement, 
77 ; on the Lecomptou Constitution, 
223. 

Beecher, H. W., 165. 

Bell, John, 9, 23. 

Benjamin, J. P., 75. 

Benton, T. H., 7, 11. 

Biggs, Senator, of North Carolina, 
231. 

Black Jack, battle of, 154-156. 

Blood, James, 132, 143, 148, 185, 199. 

Blue Lodges, 41. 

Bourgmont, M. de, 20. 

Branscomb, C. H., 34. 

Branson, Jacob, 86, 87 ; arrest and 
rescue of, 88, 89. 

Brindle, General William, 230. 

Brooks, P. S., 129. 

Brown, John, speech of at Lawrence, 
100, 101 ; relation of to Kansas his- 
tory, 137 ; character and theories of, 
138-141 ; raid of upon the Pottawa- 

• tomie, 142-154; fight of at Black 
Jack, 154-156 ; foray of upon St. 
Bernard, 156, 157 ; releases Pate, 
159-161 ; narrow escape of from 
capture, 171 ; at Lawrence, Septem- 
ber, 1856, 199 ; declaration of to 
Captain Snyder, 244 ; letter of to A. 
A. Lawrence, 251 ; interview of with 
Governor Robinson, 252 ; raid of 
into Missouri, 252-255. 



Brown, John Carter, 30. 
Brown, John, Jr., 141, 142. 
Brown, B. P., 72, 73. 
Buchanan, James, 210, 211, 230. 
Buford, Jefferson, 105, 106, 125. 
Bulkley, Harrison, 87. 
BuU Creek, 190, 198. 
Bushnell, Horace, 31. 
Butler, A. P., 8, 97, 105. 
Butler, Rev. Pardee, 79-82. 
Byrd, J. H., 65. 

Cabot, Dr. Samuel, Jr., 30, 166. 

CaUioun, John, 221, 229, 230. 

Callioun, J. C, 4. 

Callew, Jake, 295, 296. 

" Candle-box " election returns, the, 
seizure of, 229, 230. 

Carney, Governor Tliomas, 271, 273, 
287, 297, 298 ; confidential relations 
of with Lane, 299-302. 

Caskie, John S., 8. 

Cass, Lewis, on the Compromise of 
1850, 1 ; presents the Topeka me- 
morial to the Senate, 74, 75 ; de- 
nounces Sumner's speech, 128. 

Cato, Judge S. G., letter to Governor 
Shannon on the Pottawatomie raid, 
152 ; course of toward free-state 
prisoners, 202 ; a mandamus of, 219. 

Census, first territorial, 43 ; second 
territorial, 212. 

Chase, S. P., 9, 10, 12. 

Choate, Rufus. 13. 

Church, Lieutenant J. R., disperses 
John Brown, Jr.'s company, 141, 
142, 147. 

Clarke, G. W., raid of in the South- 
east, 239, 240 ; arrest of, 248, 249. 

Clay, Henry, 1. 

Cline, Captain, 190. 

Coates, Kersey, 50. 

Coleman, F. N., 86, 87. 

Committees, Eastern Aid, operations 
of, 164. 

" Commonwealth," the Boston, 299, 
300. 



830 



INDEX. 



Compromise, the, of 1850, 1, 11. 

"Conservative," the Leavenworth, 
278, 301. 

Constitutional Convention, the, at 
Topeka, 70, 71 ; at Lecomptou, 211, 
220-226 ; at Minneola and Leaven- 
worth, 2G1 ; at Wyandotte, 2G3, 2G4. 

Csnvention, the, at Salt Creek Val- 
ley, June, 1854, 27 ; at La\vrence, 
June 27, 1855, 03 ; August 11-15, G3, 
68-69; at Big Springs, October 5, 
61-68 ; at Topeka, September 19, 69 ; 
at Leavenworth, November 14, 83, 
84 ; at Topeka, July 4, 1856, 131 ; at 
Lecompton, July, 1857, 215 ; at To- 
peka, July, 216 ; at Grasshopper 
FaUs, August, 216, 217; at Law- 
rence, December, 225-228. 

Conway, M. F., 54, 90, 104. 

Cooke, Colonel P. St. George, 171, 192, 
193, 194, 198, 199, 200. 

Coronado, 17-19. 

Court, Squatter, 242-244. 
Covode, John, 2S1. 
Crittenden-Montgomery bill, the, 234. 

Davis, Jefferson, 135, 265. 

Debates of 1850 and 1854, comparison 
of, 4. 

De Bow's Review, " An Appeal " in, 
175, 176. 

Deitzler, G. W., 60. 

Democratic party, the, changes of in 
nomenclature, 203. 

Democratic Review, 49, 60, 106, 234. 

Denver, J. W., appointment of as act- 
ing governor, 228 ; familiarity of 
with the border, 229; letter of to 
President Buclianan, 231 ; visit of 
to the Southeast, 250, 251 ; refusal 
of to remove from Lecompton, 259 ; 
vetoes bill for a Constitutional Con- 
vention, 259 ; resignation of, 260. 

DLxon, Archibald, amendment of to 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 3. 

Dodge, A. C, bill of for the organiza- 
tion of Nebraska, 2. 
Donaldson, Marshal J. B., proclnma- 
tion of, 118 ; at Topeka, JiUy 4, 1856, 
133, 134. 
DooUttle, Senator, 302, 303. 
Douglas, S. A., Chairman of Senate 
Committee on Territories, 3 ; state- 
ment of to Senator Dixon, 3, 4 ; re- 
lation of to the Compromise of 1850, 
5, 6 ; qualifications of for leader- 
ship, 6 ; debates of with Lincoln, 
8, 9 ; burnt in efUgy, 14 ; on the 
Emigrant Aid Company, 33 ; on the 
convention at Big Springs, 68 ; at- 
tacks the Topeka Memorial, 74, 75, 



slavery clause of the Lecompton 

Constitution, 222. 
Dow, Charles M., 86. 
Doyle, James P., 145, 147. 
Dred Scott decision. The, 210. 
Dimn Bill, the, 107. 
Dutch Henry's Crossing, massacre at, 

142-154 ; consequences of the raid 

upon, 176, 190. 

Easton, affray at, 72, 73. 

Edwards, C. L., 314. 

Elections, territorial, November, 1854, 
40 ; March 30, 1855, 43-49 ; October 
5, 1857, 218; December 21, 1857, 
and January 4, 1858, 225, 228-230. 

Eldridge, S. \V., 172, 179, 180. 

Elmore, Rush, 133, 134, 222. 

Emerson, R. W., 164, 310. 

Emery, J. S., 104. 

Emigrant Aid Company, 29-33 ; towns 
founded by, 34 ; rumors concerning 
on the border, 39, 40. 

English Bill, the, 235, 236. 

English, W. H., 14, 235. 

Everett, Edward, 9, 23. 

Examiner, the Christian, 232. 

Famine of 1860, the, 271. 
xFort Orleans, 20. 

Fort Saunders, capture of, 182. 

Fort Scott, 238, 239; expedition of 
Captain Walker to, 248, 249 ; at- 
tacked by Montgomery, 249, 250 ; 
Denver's visit to, 250, 251. 

Fort Titus, capture of, 1S2-1S5. 

Franklin, attacks upon, 179-182. 

Free-State party, the, 63, G4, 216-218, 
225-228, 262, 265, 266. 

Fuller, Perry, 300. 

Geary, J. W., appointment of as gov- 
ernor, 197 ; succors Lawi-ence, 198- 
201 ; efforts of to reform the judi- 
ciary, 202, 203 ; proclamation of for 
a day of thanksgiving, 203 ; inter- 
view of with Governor Robinson, 
204 ; assault on, 205, 206 ; letter of 
to A. A. LawTence, 207 ; resigns, 
208. 

Gihon, J. H., on the second territorial 
legislature, 205. 

Gladstone, T. H., 117, 128, 268. 

Green, J. S., on Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany, 33 ; member of conference 
committee on the Lecomptou bill, 
235 ; opposes the Wyandotte Con- 
stitution, 264. 

Grinnell, Moses H., 31. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 31. 



76 ; denounces Sumner, 129 ; on the i Halleck, General H. W., 279, 280, 



INDEX. 



331 



Halpine, C. G., Report of, 276. 
Haiuilton, Charles A., 244-2'16. 
Hammond, Senator of South Carolina, 

231, 23C. 
Hai'lau, James, 75. 
Harris, James, testimony of on the 

Pottawatomie raid, 150. 
Harvey, J. A., 192, 193, 201. 
Heiskell, W. A., letter to Governor 

Shannon on the Pottawatomie raid, 

150, 151. 
Hickory Point, Jefferson County, skir- 
mish at, 201, 202. 
Higginson, T. W., 303. 
Houston, Samuel, 9, 23. 
Houston, S. D., 55. 
Howard, W. A., 108, 114, 235. 
Howe, Dr. S. G., 30, 109. 
Hoyt, Major, D. S., murder of, 182. 
Hughes, Representative of Indiana, 

212. 
Hughes, Thomas, 148. 
Hunter, General David, 276, 279- 

281. 
Hunter, R. M. T., 235. 
Hutchuison, William, 185. 
Hyatt, Thaddeus, 168, 169. 

Indian chiefs, opiuions of concerning 
Lane, 278, 279. 

Investigating Committee, the Con- 
gressional, 108, 145, 146. 

Irving, W., on the "Great American 
Desert," 307, 308. 

Iverson, Alfred, 232. 

Jayhawking, note on the origin of the 
word, 240. 

Johnson, Andrew, remarks of upon 
Jolin Brown, 146. 

Johnson, Rev. Thomas, 53, 308. 

Johnston, Colonel J. E., 170, 200. 

Jones, S. J., 87, 88 ; arrests Branson, 
88 ; appeals to Missouri and Gov- 
ernor Shannon, 90, 91 ; on the Waka- 
rusa treaty, 99, 100 ; makes arrests 
in Lawrence, 108, 109 ; attempted 
assassination of, 109, 110 ; at Law- 
rence, May 21, 1856, 122, 123, 125, 
126, 127 ; assails Secretary Stan- 
ton, 219 ; advice of to McLean, 229, 
230. 

Judiciary, the territorial, 202, 203. 

KLansas, territorial boundaries, 17 ; a 
part of the Louisiana purchase, 19 ; 
migrations across, 22 ; an Indian 
reservation, 22 ; an arena for exper- 
iments in popular sovereignty, 23 ; 
Southern opinion of, 231, 232 ; ad- 
mission of to the Union, 266 ; char- 
acter of the struggle for, 265, 266 ; 



social condition of in the territorial 
period, 268-270 ; drouth in, 270 ; 
"exodus" of neproes to, 305, 300; 
Irving on, 307, 308 ; Indian trou- 
bles in, 307 ; agricultural develop- 
ment of, 308, 309 ; meteorological 
cliauges in, 309, 310 ; indebtedness 
to railroads, 310 ; religious progiess 
of, 311, 312 ; educational history of, 
312-318 ; natural scenery of, 318, 
319 ; spirit and temper of, 319, 
320. 

Kansas-Nebraska bill, 2, 3 ; its revis- 
ions, 4 ; Southern views of, 7, 8 ; ar- 
ginnentsfor, 6-8 ; argument against, 
10, 12 ; review of the debate on, 12, 
13 ; consequences of the passage of, 
13, 14. 

Kickapoo, 28. 

Lane, J. H., 63; at Big Springs, 64, 
65 ; President of the Topeka Consti- 
tutional Convention, 70 ; elected 
senator under the Topeka move- 
ment, 74 ; in charge of tlie Topeka 
memorial to Congress, 75, 76 ; col- 
lision with Douglas, 76, 77 ; second 
in command during Wakarusa War, 
92 ; speech at Franklin, 99 ; " North- 
em army " of, 169, 170 ; expedition 
of against Fort Saunders, 182 ; 
marches to Lecompton, 193, 194 ; 
operations of in Jefferson Comity, 
201 ; election of to the United States 
Senate, 272 ; campaign of in 1861, 
274-278 ; " Great Southern Expedi- 
tion " of, 279-281 ; declarations of 
to General McClellan, 279 ; appoint- 
ment of as Commissioner for re- 
cruiting, 281, 282 ; downfall and 
death of, 298-302 ; character and in- 
fluence of, 302-304. 

Lawrence, Amos A., 30, 35, 49, 61, 92, 
104, 166, 197, 199, 251 ; eftorts of for 
the release of Governor Robinson, 
195, 196 ; Letter of to Governor 
Robinson, 314 ; bequest of to tlie 
city of Lawrence, 314 ; letter of to 
Rev. E. Nute, 315. 

Lawrence, founding of, 34, 35 ; siege 
of in the Wakarusa War, 91 ; attack 
upon, May 21, 1856, 118-128 ; con- 
dition of in the summer of 1856, 
179, 180 ; destruction of by Quan- 
trill, 28.5-296 ; schools and colleges 
at, 314-317. 

Leavenworth, 28 ; election riot at, 72 ; 
Emory's regulators in, 188. 

Leavenworth Constitution, 259-261. 

Lecompte, S. D., charge of to the grand 
jury of Douglas County, 111, 112 ; 
letter of to J. A. Stewart, 123 ; con- 



332 



INDEX. 



troversy of with Governor Geary, 
203. 

Lecompton, 28; panic at, 186, 187; 
recoim^iissance upon, 192-194; af- 
fray at, 206, 207 ; free-state demon- 
str.ition at, 221. 

Lecompton Constitution, the, 211, 212, 
220-225, 227-230 ; in Congress, 232- 
236. 

Legislature, territorial, first session 
of, 53, 54-58 ; second session of, 
205 ; extra session of, 227, 228 ; third 
session of, 257-259 ; fourth session 
of, 2G2. 

Lewis and Clark, expeditions of, 21. 

Lexington, Mo., Convention, 24. 

Liberator, the, 29, 31. 

Libarty township, skirmish in, 238, 
239. 

Lincoln, A., debates with Douglas, 
8, 9 ; relations of with Lane, 274 ; 
indorsement of on Halleck's letter, 
280 ; letter of to Secretary Stanton, 
297. 

Lines, C. B., 165. 

Little, Marshal, 242-244. 

Log Cabins, 102, 268. 

Long, Major H. S., 21. 

Lowmau, H. E., 289. 

Lowrey, G. P., 90, 95, 96. 

Lum, Rev. S. Y., 311. 

" Lynceus," 24, 25. 

McClellan, General G. B., 279, 280. 

McGee County, frauds in, 218. 

Mcintosh, Lieutenant James, 109, 110. 

McLean, L. A., 229, 230. 

Marais des Cygnes Massacre, 244- 
246. 

Mason, James M. , 129. 

Massacliusetts Legislature, the resolu- 
tions of, 163. 

Medary, Samuel, 261. 

Minneola, 258, 259. 

Missouri Compromise, 3, 7, 11-13. 

Missouri Legislature, action of in ref- 
erence to troubles in the Southeast, 
252-255. 

Missouri River, the, embargo on, 166, 
167. 

Missouri, Western, population of, 24, 
25 ; squatters from, 26. 

Montgomery, James, 240, 241 ; attempt 
of to Idll Hamilton, 244 ; attacks 
Fort Scott, 249, 250. 

Morrow, Robert, 172. 

Native American Suffrage, 41, 42. 
Nute, Rev. E., 316. 

Oliver, Mordecai, apology of for his 
constituents, 39 ; investigations of 



concerning the Pottawatomie raid, 
146. 

Osawatomie, 34 ; pillage of, 162 ; bat- 
tle of, 190, 191. 

Osceola, Missouri, sack of, 275. 

Overland immigration, 167, 172. 

Oxford, frauds at, 218. 

Parkville Luminary, the, 47. 

Pate, Captain H. C, 152, 153 ; surren- 
ders at Black Jack, 155, 156 ; re- 
leased by Colonel Sumner, 159, 161. 

Pawnee, 53. 

PliiUips, William, 49, 50, 188. 

Philhps, W. A., 164. 

Pierce, Fraukhu, election of as presi- 
dent, 2 ; dispatch of to Shaimon, 
119 ; declarations of concerning the 
free-state movement, 195, 196 ; re- 
leases Governor Robinson, 196. 

Pike, Captain J. A., 288. 

Pike, Lieutenant Z. M., 21. 

Plumb, P. B., 294. 

Plymouth Church, 312. 

Polk, Senator of Missouri, 233, 234. 

Pomeroy, S. C, 126, 172, 195, 196, 
272. 

Popular Sovereignty, first appearance 
of in politics, 7 ; constitutionally ex- 
ercised when, 8, 9. 

Pottawatomie Massacre, the, 142-154, 
102, 176, 190. 

Prairie City, skirmish at, 153, 154. 

Presidential Election of 1856, the, 
209. 

Preston, Colonel W. J., 171, 172. 

Price Raid, the, 297, 298. 

Pugh, George E., 75. 

Quantrill, W. C, 286-294. 

" Red-legs," the, 2S4-2S6. 

Redpath, James, 170. 

Reeder, A. H., 37, 38 ; canvass of re- 
turns of the March election, 1885, 
49-52 ; visits Washuigton, 52 ; 
breaks with the legislature, 55, 56 ; 
removal from office, 58 ; character 
of his administration, 58 ; at Big 
Springs, 65-68 ; elected senator un- 
der the Topeka movement, 74 ; at- 
tempted arrest of, 113, 114. 

Reid, J. W., 190, 191, 200, 238. 

Republican party, the, organization 
of in Kansas, 2G2, 263. 

Robinson, Charles, 33, 34 ; letters to 
A. A. Lawrence, 35, 49, 61, 62, 92, 93, 
104, 199, 203, 204, 314, 317 ; urges M. 
P. Conway to resis:!! his seat in the 
territorial legisl'iture, 54 ; scheme of 
counter-moves, 59 ; secures Sharpe's 
rifles, 60 ; an abolitionist, 64 ; elected 



INDEX. 



333 



governor under the Topeka Consti- 
tution, 71 ; consulted by Branson 
rescuers, 89, 90 ; in coiiunand dur- 
ing tlie Wakarusa War, 92 ; speech 
at Franklin, 99; Atcliisou on,_100; 
plans for a visit to the East,' 114, 
115 ; arrested at Lexington, Mo., 
116 ; experiences of at Lenveiiworth, 
lie, 117 ; letter to the Topeka Lieg- 
islature, 132 ; Missourians on the 
plans of, 174 ; interview of with 
Governor Geary, 204 ; favors voting, 
217, 218 ; accompanies Governor 
Denver to the Soutlieast, 250 ; inter- 
view of with old John Blown, 252 ; 
leadersiiip of, 200 ; message of to 
the state legislature, 271 ; relations 
of to Lane, 272 ; letter of to General 
Fremont, 275, 276 ; reply of to Sec- 
retary Stanton, 282 ; impeachment 
of, 282-284. 

Eobiuson, Mrs. S. T. L., 89, 164, 184, 
196, 312. 

Rodrigue, Aristides, 185. 

Kopes, Mrs. H. A., 304. 

Sanborn, F. B., 154, 

Samiders, Fort, capture of, 182. 

Sedgwick, Major John, 183, 185, 186. 

Selby, Minerva, testimony of concern- 
ing tlie Pottawatomie raid, 151. 

Seward, W. H., on the Compromise of 
1850, C ; character of, 10 ; ou the 
consequences of the Kansas - Ne- 
braska bill, 16 ; men>ber of confer- 
ence committee on the Lecompton 
bill, '235 ; calls up the bill for the 
admission of Kansas, 266. 

Shannon, Wilson, 79, 83, 84; recep- 
tion at Shawnee Mission, 82, 83; 
calls out the militia, 91 ; visits Law- 
rence, 98 ; speech at Franklin, 99 ; 
letter of to the president, 119; or- 
ders the dispersion of the Topeka 
Legislature, 130 ; on the Pottawato- 
mie raid, 152 ; proclamation of June 
4, 1856, 1,58 ; negotiations of at Law- 
rence, 185, 186 ; removal of, 187 ; on 
governing Kansas, 187. 

Sherman, John. 108, 114, 235. 

Sherman, William, 145, 147, 150, 151. 

Shore, Captain S. T., 154, 155. 

Silliman, Professor Benjamin, Sr., 31. 

Slave-Code of the first territorial leg- 
islature, 56-58. 

Smith, Gerrit, 140, 141. 

Smith. General P. F., 189, 192, 203. 

Smith, Samuel A., 232, 233. 

Snow, P. H., 309. 

Snyder, Captain Eli, 245, 246. 

Southeast, the, 237, 238, 241. 

Spooner, W. B., 30. 



" Squatter Sovereign," the. 111, 121, 
167. 

Stanton, E. M., 274, 282, 297. 

Stanton, F. P., appoiutmeut of as ter- 
ritorial secretary, 211; his appor- 
tionmMit of tlie territory, 212 ; re- 
jects the Oxford and McGee returns, 
218 ; assailed by Sheritt Jones, 219 ; 
calls an extra session of the legis- 
lature, 226. 

Stearns, G. L., 31. 

Stephens, A. H. ,on the Compromise 
of 1850, 5 ; Oil the nativity of the 
iuunigrants, 43 ; member of confer- 
ence committee on the Lecompton 
bill, 235. 

Stewart, governor of Missouri, 252, 
253. 

Stringfellow, B. F., slave-colonization 
project, 27 ; on the plans of free- 
state men, 39 ; appeal of, to the 
South, 173, 174. 

Siunner, Charles, 9 ; 128, 129. 

Sumner, Colonel E. V., 93 ; disperses 
the Topeka Legislature, 131-135 ; on 
Shannon's proclamation, 158 ; re- 
leases Pate, 159-161 ; disbands Whit- 
field's commraid, 161. 

Swift, F. B., 202. 

Tecumseh, forays into, 178. 

Thayer, Eli, 29, 30. 

Thorpe, Jim, 47-49. 

Tissenet, M. du, 19. 

Titus, Colonel H. T., 121, 183, 184, 
186, 200. 

Toombs bill, the, 107, 108. 

Topeka, 34 ; freebooting in the vicin- 
ity of 178, 179 ; destruction of or- 
dered by Secretary Woodson, 192. 

Topeka Cou.stit«tion, the, 71 ; in Con- 
gi-ess, 74-77 ; character of the move- 
ment, 77, 78. 

Topeka Legislature, the, 74 ; disper- 
sion of, 129 ; third session of, 204, 
205 ; fourth session of, 214 ; session 
at Lawrence, 257 ; final adjom'umeut 
of, 258. 

Townsley, James, 143-145, 148. 

Tweed, W. M., 13. 

Updegraff, Dr. W. W., 190. 

Wakarusa War, the, 91-100. 

W^'lker, Mathew, 174. 

Wallrer, R. J., appointed governor, 
210; speech of at Topeka, 213; 
watches the state legislature, 214 ; 
rejects the Oxford and McGee re- 
turns, 218 ; makes a tour of Le- 
compton, 219, 220 ; departure of 
from Kansas, 226. 



334 



INDEX. 



Walker, Samuel, on the winter of 

Iti55-5G, lOli, 103 ; consulted by Col- 
ouel Suuiuer, 132 ; captures Fort 
Titus, lt)"2-185 ; encouuter of with 
a free-state mob, 186 ; interview of 
with Colonel Cooke, 193 ; seizes 
" candlebox " election returns, 230 ; 
expedition of to Fort Scott, 247-249. 

Webster, Daniel, 5, 13. 

Weiner, Theodore, 143, 148. 

White, Rev. Martin, 142 ; on the Pot- 
tawatomie raid, 151, 152 ; driven 
from the territory, 17G, 177 ; shoots 
a son of John Brown, 190 ; resolu- 
tion of in the territorial legislature, 
206. 

Whitfield, J. W., 40, 41, 110, 157, 161, 
200. 



Wigfall, senator of Texas, 264. 

Wilkinson, Allan, 145, 147. 

Williams, H. H. 142, 143, 147, 249. 

WilUams, J. M. S., 30. 

Wilson, Hem-y, 210. 

Women, hardships of, 103 ; heroism 
of, 292. 

Wood, S. N., 89, 90, 108, 109. 

Wood, Captam T. J., 202. 

Woodson, Daniel, acting governor, 83, 
189 ; letter to Colonel Sumner, 130, 
131, 134 ; orders the destruction of 
Topeka, 192 ; correspondence of vrith 
the " State Central Committee," 
194, 195. 

Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, 
262, 263, 264 ; in Congress, 264, 265. 



9lmerican Comtnontoealtts* 

EDITED BY 

HORACE E. SCUDDER. 



A series of volumes narrating the history of such 
States of the Union as have exerted a positive influ- 
ence in the shaping of the national government, or 
have a striking political, social, or economical history. 

The commonwealth has always been a positive force 
in American history, and it is believed that no better 
time could be found for a statement of the life inher- 
ent in the States than when the unity of the nation 
has been assured ; and it is hoped by this means to 
throw new light upon the development of the country, 
and to give a fresh point of view for the study of 
American history. 

This series is under the editorial care of Mr. Hor- 
ace E. Scudder, who is well known both as a student 
of American history and as a writer. 

The aim of the Editor will be to secure trustworthy 
and graphic narratives, v.'hich shall have substantial 
value as historical monographs and at the same time 
do full justice to the picturesque elements of the sub- 
jects. The volumes are uniform in size and general 
style with the series of ** American Statesmen " and 
"American Men of Letters," and are furnished with 
maps, indexes, and such brief critical apparatus as 
add to the thoroughness of the work. 

Speaking of the series, the Boston journal says : 
" It is clear that this series will occupy an entirely new 
place in our historical literature. Written by compe- 
tent and aptly chosen authors, from fresh materials, 
in convenient form, and with a due regard to propor- 
tion and proper emphasis, they promise to supply 
most satisfactorily a positive want." 



The series, so far as arranged, comprises the follow- 
ing volumes : — 

NOW READY. 

Virginia. A History of the People. By John Esten 
Cooke, author of " The Virginia Comedians," 
"Life of Stonewall Jackson," "Life of General 
Robert E. Lee," etc. 

Oregon. The Struggle for Possession. By William 
Barrows, D. D. 

Maryland. By William Hand Browne, Associate 
of Johns Hopkins University. 

Kentucky. By Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, S. D., 
Professor of Palaeontology, Harvard University, re- 
cently Director of the Kentucky State Survey. 

Michigan. By Hon. T. M. Cooley, LL. D. 

Kansas. By Leverett W. Spring, Professor of Eng- 
lish Literature in the University of Kansas. 

IN PREPARATION. 

Tennessee. By James Phelan, Ph. D. (LeipRic). 

California. By Josiah Royce, Instructor in Philoso- 
phy in Harvard University. 

Connecticut. By Alexander Johnston, author of a 
" Handbook of American Politics," Professor of 
Jurisprudence and Political Economy in the Col- 
lege of New Jersey. 

Pennsylvatiia. By Hon. Wayne McVeagh, late At- 
torney-General of the United States. ^ 

South Carolina. By Hon. William H. Trescot, au- 
thor of " The Diplomacy of the American Revolu- 
tion." 

New York. By Hon. Ellis H. Roberts. 

Missouri. By Lucien Carr, M. A., Assistant Curator 
of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology. 

Massachusetts. By Brooks Adams. 

Others to be announced hereafter. Each volume, 

with Maps, i6mo, gilt top, $1.25. 



PRESS NOTICES. 



"VIRGINIA." 

Mr. Cooke has made a fascinating volume — one which it will 
be very difficult to surpass either in method or interest. If all 
the volumes of the series ["American Commonwealths"] come 
up to the level of this one — in interest, in broad tolerance of 
spirit, and in a thorough comprehension of what is best worth 
telling — a very great service will have been done to the reading 
public. True historic insight appears through all these pages, 
and an earnest desire to do all parties and religions perfect jus- 
tice. The story of the settlement of Virginia is told in full. . . . 
It is made as interesting as a romance. — The Critic (New York). 

It need not be said that it is written in a fascinating style, and 
animated by a spirit of strong love for the author's native State, 
and pride in its history. It should be said further that it brings 
out many an obscure or forgotten bit of history, and makes real 
an epoch which is familiar to very few. — New York Evening Post. 

No more acceptable writer could have been selected to tell the 
story of Virginia's history. Mr. Cooke is a graceful writer, and 
thoroughly informed in reference to his subject. . . . He has mas- 
tered his subject, and tells the story in a delightful way. — Edu- 
cational Journal of Virginia {Richmond, Va.). 

"OREGON." 

The long and interesting story of the struggle of five nations 
for the possession of Oregon is told in the graphic and reliable 
narrative of William Barrows. ... A more fascinating record 
has seldom been written. . . . Careful research and pictorial skill 
of narrative commend this book of antecedent history to all inter- 
ested in the rapid march and wonderful development of our 
American civilization upon the Pacific coast. — Springfield Repub- 
lican. 

There is so much that is new and informing to the reading 
world embodied in this little volume that we commend it with 
enthusiasm. It is written with great ability and in a pleasing 
style, a vein of humor rippling along its pages and imparting an 
agreeable and appetizing flavor to the varied descriptions. . . . 
The book is worthy of careful perusal by all who claim to be 
intelligent concerning the rich and progressive country beyond 
the Rocky Mountains. — Magazine of American History (New 
York). 



"MARYLAND." 

In the choice of Mr. William Hand Browne as an author for a 
trustworthy and graphic account of the rise and development of 
Maryland, the editor of this valuable series of historical volumes 
has made a very strong point. Mr. Browne's familiarity with the 
political and material development of the Province as well as the 
State has enabled him to produce a work of more than usual ex- 
cellence. . . . Much that has been hitherto obscure is now pre- 
sented to the reader in a clear light. The book is well written 
in simple, straightforward, vigorous English, and is a substantial 
contribution to the history of America. — Alagazhte of Americatt 
History. 

In every way an admirable and most useful contribution to 
American history. . . . Mr. Browne has done his work with rare 
skill, thoroughness, and the moderation that of all things befits 
historical writing. His narrative, he tells us, has been written al- 
most entirely " from the original manuscript records and archives." 
He has certainly made the subject his own, and the result is a 
volume of such interest that the reader cannot afford to skip a 
line. — New York Graphic. 

"KENTUCKY." 

Professor Shaler has made use of much valuable existing ma- 
terial, and by a patient, discriminating, and judicious choice has 
given us a complete and impartial record of the various stages 
through which this State has passed from its first settlement to 
the present time. No one will read this story of the building of 
one of the great commonwealths of this Union without feelings of 
deep interest, and that the author has done his work well and im- 
partially will be the general verdict. — Christian at Wo7'k (New 
York). 

Professor Shaler has prepared a succinct, well-balanced, and 
readable sketch of this " pioneer Commonwealth." Himself a 
native of Kentucky, he writes with the natural affection which a 
man of loyal impulses feels for his State, and yet with no ap- 
parent bias. . . . The volume is in every way a worthy addition 
to a series which possesses unique value and interest. — Boston 
Journal. 

A capital example of what a short State history should be. — 
Hartford Ccuraiit. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston, Mass. 



american Mm of %ttttxQ. 



EDITED BY 

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 



A series of biographies of distinguished American 
authors, having all the special interest of biography, 
and the larger interest and value of illustrating the 
different phases of American literature, the social, 
political, and moral influences which have moulded 
these authors and the generations to which they be- 
longed. 

This series when completed will form an admi- 
rable survey of all that is important and of historical 
influence in American literature, and will itself be a 
creditable representation of the literary and critical 
ability of America to-day. 



Washington Irving. By Charles Dudley Warner. 
Noah Webster. By Horace E. Scudder. 
Henry D. Thoreau. By Frank B. Sanborn. 
George Ripley. By Octavius Brooks Frothingham. 
J. Fenimore Cooper. By Prof. T. R. Lounsbury. 
Margaret Fuller Ossoli. By T. W. Higginson. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. By Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
Edgar Allan Poe. By George E. Woodberry. 
Nathaniel Parker Willis. By Henry A. Beers. 

IN PREPARA TION. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. By James Russell Lowell, 
William Culleti Bryant. By John Bigelow. 
Bayard Taylor. By J. R. G. Hassard. 
William Gilmore Simms. By George W. Cable. 
Benjamin Franklin. By John Bach McMaster. 

Others to be announced hereafter. 

Each volume, with Portrait, i6mo, gilt top, $1.25,. 



"WASHINGTON IRVING." 
Mr. Warner has not only written with sympathy, mi- 
nute knowledge of his subject, fine literary taste, and that 
easy, fascinating style which always puts him on such 
good terms witii his readers, but he has shown a tact, 
critical sagacity, and sense of proportion full of promise 
for the rest of the series which is to pass under his 
supervision. — Aew York Tribune. 

It is a very charming piece of literary work, and pre- 
sents the reader with an excellent picture of Irving as a 
man and of his methods as an author, together with an 
accurate and discriminating characterization of his works. 
— Boston Journal. 

It would hardly be possible to produce a fairer or more 
candid book of its kind. — Literary World (London). 



"NOAH WEBSTER." 

Mr. Scudder's biography of Webster is alike honorable 
to himself and its subject. Finely discriminating in all 
that relates to personal and intellectual character, schol- 
arly and just in its literary criticisms, analyses, and 
estimates, it is besides so kindly and manly in its tone, its 
narrative is so spirited and enthraUing, its descriptions 
are so quaintly graphic, so varied and cheerful in their 
coloring, and its pictures so teem with the bustle, the 
movement, and the activities of the real life of a bj'-gone 
but most interesting age, that the attention of the reader 
is never tempted to wander, and he lays down the book 
with a sigh of regret for its brevity. — Harper's Monthly 
Magazine. 

It fills completely its place in the purpose of this se- 
ries of volumes. — The Critic (New York). 

" HENRY D. THOREAU." 
Mr. Sanborn's book is thoroughly American and truly 
fascinating. Its literary skill is exceptionally good, and 
there is a racy flavor in its pages and an amount of exact 
knowledge of interesting people that one seldom meets 
with in current literature. Mr. Sanborn has done Tho- 
reau's genius an imperishable service. — American Church 
Review (New York). 

Mr. Sanborn has written a careful book about a curious 
man, whom he has studied as impartially as possible ; 
whom he admires warmly but with discretion ; and the 
story of whose life he has told with commendable frank- 
ness and simplicity. — New York Mail aiid Express. 

It is undoubtedly the best life of Thoreau extant. — • 
Christian Advocate (New York). 



"GEORGE RIPLEY." 

Mr. Frothingham's memoir is a calm and thoughtful 
and tender tribute. It is marked by rare discrimination, 
and good taste and simplicity. The biographer keeps 
himself in the background, and lets his subject speak. 
And the result is one of the best examples of personal 
portraiture that we have met with in a long time. — The 
Cfuirclwtan (New York). 

He has fulfilled his responsible task with admirable 
fidelity, frank earnestness, justice, fine feeling, balanced 
moderation, delicate taste, and finished literary skill. It 
is a beautiful tribute to the high-bred scholar and gener- 
ous-hearted man, whose friend he has so worthily por- 
trayed. — Rev. William H. C/ianning (^London). 



"JAMES FENIMORE COOPER." 
We have here a model biography. The book is charm- 
ingly written, with a felicity and vigor of diction that are 
notable, and with a humor sparkling, racy, and never 
obtrusive. The story of the life will have something of 
the fascination of one of the author's own romances. — 
JVew York Tribune. 

Prof. Lounsbury's book is an admirable specimen of 
literary biography. . . . We can recall no recent addition 
to American biography in any department which is supe- 
rior to it. It gives the reader not merely a full account 
of Cooper's literary career, but there is mingled with this 
a sufiisjent account of the man himself apart from his 
books, and of the period in which he lived, to keep 
alive the interest from the first word to the last. — New 
York Evening Post. 

"MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI." 
Here at last we have a biography of one of the noblest 
and the most intellectual of American women, which does 
full justice to its subject. The author has had ample 
material for his work, — all the material now available, 
perhaps, — and has shown the skill of a master in his 
use of it. . . . It is a fresh view of the subject, and adds 
important information to that already given to the public. 
~- Rev. Dr. F. H. Hedge, in Boston Advertiser. 

He has filled a gap in our literary history with excel- 
lent taste, with sound judgment, and with that literary 
skill which is preeminently his own. — Christian Union 
(New York). 

Mr. Higginson writes with both enthusiasm and sym- 
pathy, and makes a volume of surpassing interest. — 
'Commercial Advertiser (New York). 



"RALPH WALDO EMERSON." 

A biography of Emerson by Holmes is a real event in 
American literature. . . . He has brought Emerson him- 
self so near, and painted- him for us with a pencil so 
loving and yet so just, that it will remain with many of 
us a question which shall be hereafter most dear to us, 
the man whom the artist thus reveals, or the artist him- 
self. — Standard (Chicago). 

Dr. Holmes has written one of the most delightful 
biographies that has ever appeared. Every page sparkles 
with genius. His criticisms are trenchant, his analysis 
clear, his sense of proportion delicate, and his sympa- 
thies broad and deep. — Philadelphia Press. 



"EDGAR ALLAN POE." 

Mr. Woodberry has contrived with vast labor to con- 
struct what must hereafter be called the authoritative 
biography of Poe — a biography which corrects all others, 
supplements all others, and supersedes all others. — The 
Critic (New York). 

The best life of Poe that has yet been written, and no 
better one is likely to be written hereafter. This is high 
praise, but it is deserved. Mr. Woodberry has spared no 
pains in exploring sources of information ; he has shown 
rare judgment and discretion in the interpretation of what 
he has found ; he has set forth everything frankly and 
fairly; and he has brought to bear upon the critical part 
of his work a keen instinct, a well-informed mind, a sound 
judgment, and the utmost catholicity of spirit. — Cof/itner- 
cial Advertiser {'i<[t\N York). 



"NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS." 

Prof. Beers has done his work sympathetically yet can- 
didly and fairly and in a philosophic manner, indicating 
the status occupied by Willis in the republic of letters, 
and sketching graphically his literary environment and 
the main springs of his success. It is one of the best 
books of an excellent series. — Biiff'alo Times. 

The work is sober, frank, honest, trustworthy, and em- 
inently readable. — The Beacon (Boston). 

A delightful biographical study. — Brooklyn Union. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston, Mass. 



SLmerican Statesmen. 

A Series of Biographies of Men conspicuous in the 
Political History of the United States. 

EDITED BY 

JOHN T. MORSE, Jr. 



The object of this senes is not merely to give a 
number of unconnected narratives of men in Ameri- 
can political life, but to produce books v/hich shall, 
when taken together, indicate the lines of political 
thought and development in American history, — 
books embodying in compact form the result of ex- 
tensive study of the many and diverse influences 
which have combined to shape the political history of 
our country. 

The series is under the editorship of Mr. John T. 
Morse, Jr., whose historical and biographical writings 
give ample assurance of his special fitness for tlm 
task. The volumes now ready are as follows: — 

Jolm Qiiincy Adams. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
Alexander Hamilton. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 
yohn C. Calhoun. By Dr. H. von Holst. 
Andrew Jackson. By Prof. W. G. Sumner. 
jfohn Randolph. By Henry Adams. 
James Monroe. By Pres. Daniel C. Oilman, 
Thomas Jefferson. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
Daniel Webster. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 
Albert Gallatin. By John Austin Stevens. 
James Madison. By Sydney Howard Gay., 
John Ada77is. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
John Marshall. By A. B. Magruder. 
Samuel Adams. By James K. Hosmer. 

IN PREPARATION. 
Henry Clay. By Hon. Carl Schurz. 
Martin Van Buren. By Hon. Wm. Dorsheimer. 

Others to be announced hereafter. Each biography 
occupies a single volume, i6mo, gilt top. Price $1.25. 



ESTIMATES OF THE PRESS. 



"JOHN QUINCY ADAMS." 

That Mr. Morse's conclusions will in the main be those of 
posterity we have very little doubt, and he has set an admirable 
example to his coadjutors in respect of interesting narrative, 
just proportion, and judicial candor. — New York Evetiing 
Post. 

Mr. Morse has written closely, compactly, intelligently, fear- 
lessly, honestly. — New Yoi-k Times. 



"ALEXANDER HAMILTON." 

The biography of Mr. Lodge is calm and dignified through- 
out. He has the virtue — rare indeed among biographers — 
of impartiality. He has done his work with conscientious care, 
and the biography of Hamilton is a book which cannot have 
too many readers. It is more than a biography ; it is a study 
in the science of government. — St. Paul Pioneer-Press. 



"JOHN C. CALHOUN." 

Nothing can exceed the skill with which the political career 
of the great South Carolinian is portrayed in these pages. The 
work is superior to any other number of the series thus far, and 
we do not think it can be surpassed by any of those that are to 
come. The whole discussion in relation to Calhoun's position 
is eminently philosophical and just. — The Dial (Chicago). 



"ANDREW JACKSON." 

Prof. Sumner has, ... all in all, made the justest long esti- 
mate of Jackson that has had itself put between the covers of a 
book. — New York Times. 

One of the most masterly monographs that we have ever had 
the pleasure of reading. It is calm and clear. — Providence 
yournal. 



"JOHN RANDOLPH." 

The book has been to me intensely interesting. ... It is 
rich in new facts and side lights, and is worthy of its place in 
the already brilliant series of monographs on American States- 
men. — Prof. Moses Coit Tyler. 

Remarkably interesting. . . . The biography has all the ele- 
ments of popularity, and cannot fail to be widely read. — Hart- 
ford Coitratit. 

"JAMES MONROE." 

In clearness of style, and in all points of literary workman- 
ship, from cover to cover, the volume is well-nigh perfect. 
There is also a calmness of judgment, a correctness of taste, 
and an absence of partisanship which are too frequently want- 
ing in biographies, and especially in political biographies. — 
American Literary Ckurchmatt (Baltimore). 

The most readable of all the lives that have ever been written 
of the great jurist. — San Francisco Bulletin. 



"THOMAS JEFFERSON." 

The book is exceedingly interesting and readable. The at- 
tention of the reader is strongly seized at once, and he is carried 
along in spite of himself, sometimes protesting, sometimes 
doubting, yet unable to lay the book down. — Chicago Standard. 

The requirements of political biography have rarely been 
met so satisfactorily as in this memoir of Jefferson. — Boston 
yournal. 



"DANIEL WEBSTER." 

It will be read by students of history ; it will be invaluable as 
a work of reference ; it will be an authority as regards matters 
of fact and criticism ; it hits the key-note of Webster's durable 
and ever-growing fame ; it is adequate, calm, impartial ; it is ad- 
mirable. — Philadelphia Press. 

The task has been achieved ably, admirably, and faithfully. — 
Boston Transcript. 



^^' "ALBERT GALLATIN." ^i^^,. 

It is one of the most carefully prepared of these ve^ry valu- 
able volumes, . . . abounding in information not so readily ac- 
cessible as is that pertaining to men more often treated by the 
biographer. . . . The whole work covers a ground which the 
political student cannot afford to neglect. — Boston Corrcspow 
deitt Hartford Cater ant. ? t** ' 

Frank, simple, and straightforward. — New York Tribune. 



"JAMES MADISON." 

The execution of the work deserves the highest praise. It is 
very readable, in a bright and vigorous style, and is marked by 
unity and consecutiveness of plan. — The Nation (New York). 

An able book. . . . Mr. Gay writes with an eye single to truth. 
— The Critic (New York). 



"JOHN ADAMS." 

A good piece of literary work. ... It covers the ground 
thoroughly, and gives just the sort of simple and succinct ac- 
count that is wanted. — Evening Post (New York). 

A model of condensation and selection, as well as of graphic 
portraiture and clear and interesting historical narrative. — 
Christian Intelligencer (New York). 



"JOHN MARSHALL." 
Well done, with simplicity, clearness, precision, and judg- 
ment, and in a spirit of moderation and equity. A valuable ad- 
dition to the series. — New York Tribune. 



"SAMUEL ADAMS." 

Thoroughly appreciative and sympathetic, yet fair and criti- 
cal. . . , This biography is a piece of good work — a clear and 
simple presentation of a noble man and pure patriot ; it is 
written in a spirit of candor and humanity. — Worcester Spy. 

A brilliant and enthusiastic book, .which it will do every 
American much good to read. — The Beacon (Boston). 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN, AND CO., Boston, Mass. 



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